


Know Your Jurisdiction

by cryptonomicon (orphan_account)



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Thor (2011)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Community: norsekink, Crack, Crack Pairing, Crossover, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-22
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-29 23:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cryptonomicon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a tortuous excursion into the far reaches of the Realms, Loki finds himself blindly adrift with failing magic on a strange embodiment of Midgard. But this Midgard is not the one that his brother frequented during his banishment, seemingly so long ago. This is a different Earth, full of new faces, but old admirers. And as Loki becomes entrenched in the political undertow of business in Gotham City as a mortal man, he makes friends as quickly as he makes enemies. After one torturous night, however, he is left teetering on the brink of destruction, and his friends must fight to find a way to keep him from falling apart before his enemies tear him apart for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ink_on_ice](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ink_on_ice).



> Based on this prompt from the kinkmeme and thus continued herein:
> 
> "Similar to earlier prompts, Odin learns Loki's part in the confrontation with Jotunheim. He strips Loki of his power and banishes him to Midgard instead of Thor.
> 
> Loki winds up in Gotham City.
> 
> Whether he becomes a villain or goes on a morally ambiguous path where he's at once causing and solving mischief sort of like he does in mythology is up to you. He can make a civilian identity for himself if you want, or not.
> 
> Bonus for interactions with Batman, any of the Robins/Batgirls, or Commissioner Gordon. In terms of the rogues he can meet whoever you want (if anyone), though I'm especially intrigued by Riddler and Selina Kyle. All pairings are fair game if you want to go that way."

He learned quickly that when one was made simply of flesh and bones, one did not toy openly with certain people. There were many such people he discovered early on, as a young and impressionable nobody without a penny to his name. But soon the copper flowed freely, as one too many men in the dark alleyways of Gotham made the mistake of trying to make use of his 'pretty face'. Rumor grew, and a reputation slowly followed, dogging after his footsteps like a wayward phantom.

But unlike others he dichotomized early. His face took on the likeness of many names, and his true appearance slowly became lost to but a rare few as his aliases were plunged into the very lucrative business of knowing things. He was good at that business, and it became clear very quickly that he was better at it than everyone else from the sheer surprise of the onlookers at how fast the wildfire of his underground fame spread.

Some of his names gained enemies, as names usually do when they become too important. But a voice is harder to trace in a city like Gotham than one might think. Regardless of money or resources, the end of their murderous hunt for his shadowed steps always ended the same: with an empty room and a heartfelt note of warning. Loki of all people was far too cunning to be foiled, and slowly his fellow dwellers of the underbelly of Gotham began to realize it.

 _I'm watching._ he would always write. And he found it amusing as the upper echelon of Gotham, to which his name had trickled through the webs of conspiracy they thought they spun, slowly began to spend more time looking over their shoulders with wary glances. They knew The Batman watched from a shadowed lofty perch by night when all of their games were afoot, but now there was a new fear that walked among them in the daylight, clawing out their secrets from their silk-lined pockets, making them uneasy.

Only one man knew his real name, and he feared no evil to come of it. Irony, the policeman had told him at first, for he had heard the stories long ago. Planned irony, that he should call himself Loki, God of Mischief. But the Commissioner was too prudent a man to waste an opportunity, even if he didn't know the gruesome details of how it was one. He never asked Loki how he knew the things he knew, and Loki, to date, never asked for protection. So, as with the strange relationship between the Commissioner and the caped crusader, they let themselves alone to their own business, only calling on one another when it was beneficial.

But for Loki, there was another strange satisfaction he got with working with the very police who were hounding down the shadows in search of his "other selves". After all, working for the Commissioner would have been far more taxing if he'd used a false name; he was indeed in contact with the man most often. And something prideful in him just couldn't stand the thought of someone calling him by the wrong name so often, especially if he was of value.

Or perhaps it was just Gordon's way about things that made Loki feel that way; for he had no trouble at all with the name he'd fed the un-weaned businessmen of Gotham's highest towers being said repeatedly. And part of that was probably the sheer gratification of watching unsuspecting mortals eat up his lies like they were milk to the babe soul. Even when Gordon needed him, he did not sink so low as to bear his soul in his eyes, like many men did when Loki's "business advising" came calling. And most often their bared souls revealed greed, ravenous enough to make them trust the King of All Lies without question.

But Norman Danvers was not the God of Mischief or the King of All Lies. Norman Danvers was a councilor to the great and the stupid, and had even risen so far as to fool the almighty Bruce Wayne, whose secrets he also knew under another name. But his lips remained thin around those veiled observations, because there would never be a high enough bidder for his knowledge when Bruce Wayne's loyalty could at some point be possible.

But Loki did not belittle himself to think he was giving allegiance to lesser men, even when giving "council". Merely, he was making arrangements to assure that however long his stay on Midgard was, it would be secure and a comfortable level of safe.

At least, he thought so. Until another kingly trickster came calling.


	2. Chapter 1

Loki made a point to never indulge himself when at dinner with his clients. Regardless of restaurant or pretense, he always maintained a strict code of manners. He ordered light, inexpensive fare, drank water, and forsook any desserts or supplementals. At first it offended some he dined with; others were thankful for the saved expense. But over time, and through enough meetings and complimentary meals together, many of his hoity toity clients realized that it was just his way about things. They chalked it up to his "foreign upbringing", and slowly stopped asking about it in favor of respecting his choice and getting back to business. And whether that business ranged from stock analysis to offing him mattered little.

But little did any of them know that, in fact, nothing he did was without numerous purposes, each great in their own small ways. Eating conservatively included, and doing his best not to be killed when he could manage it. But he found it was much harder to deny the pleasure of a good meal and no death threats when in good company, and as much as he was in control of most aspects of his professional situations, he always found himself helplessly charmed into enjoying himself in the company of Bruce Wayne.

He was never misguided into thinking that it was because Mr. Wayne had any particular interest in him other than on a professional level. There was a mutual respect between he and the heir to the Wayne fortune regardless of Loki's far more intimate knowledge of goings on of the two, where in other business relations there was a belittling amount of nihilism. So perhaps part of it was Loki's preference to being treated like a competent equal such as it was with the Gotham Commissioner, or perhaps it was Mr. Wayne's willingness to consider him one that made for their fortuitous match in both business and the fleeting pleasures of dinner or lunch.

Whatever the combination, a dinner with Bruce Wayne usually turned out to be a pleasant and savored occasion for Loki, considering many of his other customers couldn’t hold a conversation with him for longer than they could hold a breath. Mr. Wayne had no such problem, which was just one of many pleasant aspects of such occasions. And that night in particular had started out no differently; an evening was in the process of being well and completely spent by the time they parted ways at the doors to one of the many restaurants that Wayne quietly owned. And for the sake of all appearances it seemed to be under no inclination to change circumstance anytime soon as the evening remained unsullied by rain or chill in spite of the late winter season.

Later on, he would wish often that he had taken up Bruce's offer for a ride home. The man's newly acquired Lamborghini _Aventador_ was no doubt an impressive vehicle, but part of him was still hesitant to reveal the level of poverty he lived in to any of his business associates. Mr. Wayne most of all. His new wages from his more high class clients allotted for him to purchase his clothing, the necessary technological equipment required for his work, and little more than the rent for his office and meager apartment past that. He, above all else, didn't need Bruce pitying him or ‘caring’ or any other frivolous thing like that. And if the billionaire became aware of his “situation”, as most put it, then it was almost assured that the philanthropist would feel the obligation to do something beguilingly stupid about it.

And, as much as Loki liked the man, though he might never admit it, Bruce Wayne’s care and consideration were a few of the last things on the earth he needed to deal with at that particular point in time. He had far too much else to worry about, and didn’t need all of the mess that human emotions seemed to turn everything into. It would get in the way of his work, and his work was all that he had to keep him occupied while he was trapped on the little pocket of dirty hell that was this version of Midgard.

But again, later on, a philanthropist's mild concern would have seemed like but a small nuisance when compared to the actual goings on of the night, which resulted in even more of a mess than a ride home from Brue Wayne and its repercussions could have ever wrought.

Loki would rather walk for the rest of his life than set foot in a taxi ever again after that night. Which went to show him quite quickly that the best laid plans, even _his_ best laid plans, could come apart at the seams. And though their undoing was a lengthy endeavor, the process could be initiated with the simplest of things, and the most depraved of men.

So he had said to others later on when asked, and for some strange reason no one else could really see how getting kidnapped, put to the mercy several other unfortunate goings on, and left to die by one of the most murderous, dangerous, and volatile psychopaths probably in the world was a “simple thing”. But to that end, Loki simply chalked that up to their being mortals, and thereby unable of comprehending the level of complex thought that he lived with on a daily basis that made the whole affair to him as simple as it was. Annoying, surely, but nothing more than banal.

What it turned out to be in the end was far from simple, but that was not a point in direct relation to the isolated incident itself. Which he had rather stupidly taken too long to figure out to prevent in time.

He tried his best not to think that his distraction was necessarily uncalled for. It had been the first time that any of his customers had convinced him to a drink after dinner, after all. And even if the drink had been a shapely-bodied cup of coffee, he vowed stalwartly never to do it again. Mr. Wayne’s good company and future assurances aside, having any meal or drink in public seemed like too high of a risk from then on out. And for good reason; poison could be slipped into just about anything and by anyone. And, as Loki found out, though it took a lot to drag him down with part of his Godly metabolism still intact, it was not beyond doing.

The drug hadn’t taken effect until they’d left the establishment, and for that at least Loki could be thankful. If they had stayed any longer and if it had made him publicly show the effects, he would have been the center of an unholy scene in front of God knew how many people that would happily burn down his reputation at the show; explained or not.

But delayed or not, the effects had were staggering; quite literally he felt as he’d stumbled back against a wall half a block down from the restaurant he’d been dining in. He’d waved his goodbyes to Mr. Wayne, satisfied that his public façade was still intact after he'd watched him disappear into the parking garage. But as he’d attempted to be in the process of hailing a cab, the last he would ever ride in if he had any say in the matter, the world before his eyes had spun completely out of focus and cleanly upside down.

Wisely, he’d stopped walking to keep himself from taking any missteps that might end up with him physically upside down rather than just mentally. But that didn’t keep his feeling of balance for him, and he’d stepped back clumsily to lean against the age-blackened stone of the hotel behind him just as his knees began to grow the slightest bit weak. Even on these, Gotham’s higher streets, few wandered out at that time of night, and for good reason. But as the case was, there were few at all to see what occurred next.

At first Loki had thought the hand on his arm to be Wayne; having spotted his trouble and come to his aid. But the voice that rumbled through his ears as he was hefted upright was not that of Bruce Wayne. Nor was it any other person he could discern by acquaintance. He’d caught a blurred glimpse of a yellow taxi parked by the curb some feet away, and declined to struggle against the pair of hands handling him towards it. It was what he wanted, after all, wasn’t it? A taxi to take him home. But belatedly something struck him as wrong with the whole picture, and only when the back door had closed in his face did he get the feeling in his gut, aside from the coiling sensation of nausea and discombobulation, that he should be trying to resist.

Conscious thought and sensory input didn’t last much longer than that, but he did manage to catch a glimpse of the diver before the inundating wave of disillusion washed him into darkness in a crushing wave. A scarred face smiled at him over the driver’s shoulder, the cruel wounds curling up to form a hideous grin as a pair of darkly gleaming eyes peered out from beneath the cabby’s cap.

“Hello darling,” the voice said, and it rumbled unnaturally in Loki’s ears as he felt himself slump against the door even as he tried to get his limbs to move. His hand made a vain attempt at grabbing the door handle, but on the inside it had been crudely broken off, and even as he did so the locking mechanism clicked overly loud in his ear.

“Hello Jester,” he’d mumbled to his knees drunkenly, squeezing his eyes closed in an attempt to keep away the static that was slowly overtaking his vision. There were the beginnings of fight in him now, though he feared moments too late as the tips of his fingers numbed. “Have you come to show me your dance?”

The man’s shrill laugher hurt his ears. “Goodness no!” he cooed, and the engine roared to life as he roughly cranked the ignition. “I’m here to dance with you.” His voice was little more than a snarl, and was lost for a moment in the squeal of the wheels as they swerved hazardously into traffic.

He felt his hands slowly losing their grip on the door, and his mind slowly losing grip on reality as his body slumped heavily against the back seat. But he wouldn’t let the mockery of a mortal have the last word. “I don’t dance with fools,” he murmured. His lips felt cold against his teeth.

For a time, he knew no more.

When he did come back to consciousness, the world was a slur of discordant grays before his eyes. Being far from a color blind creature, he lifted his head and looked around in confusion in a vain attempt to elucidate himself. The grays swam into black dappled with blinding white, and his head landed back down rather harshly on what he realized to be the carpeted floor he was laying on. He could feel the texture of it beneath his fingers, which he could actually feel again now as his body began to re-flesh out of the haze his senses seemed to be in.

“Ooh, you’re a quick one, aren’t you?”

He felt a burning hand hand press to his cold cheek, and his head was turned up to face the ceiling. It was dark in the unlit room, which was why he had mistaken it for being black before. But now that he actually had some semblance of his vision back, he could see the dark brown moisture stains dotting it in a familiar pattern. The light smell of the room in his nose was known to him also, and everything slowly began to piece together into a picture of dingy familiarity.

His eyes swung down to his captor, whose reapplied painted mask was cast even more into extremes in the scant light. He undoubtedly kept young Midgardians from sleeping at night with the eyes that disappeared into shadow and the smile as red as the eyes of any demon that stared at you out of the dark. No doubt adult ones too for that matter, if he lived up to his reputation at all. Loki got the feeling that he was going to be learning first hand just how accurate that reputation was, judging by the flashing in the other man’s eyes, which were the only light to discern the organism from the image.

“Taking me back to my own apartment to kill me.” The red lips curled up in a barbed smile as they faced down at him. “Very clever.”

The fingers of his left hand had regained feeling, but he couldn’t yet move them. His other hand was yet useless, left lying against his thigh, the hard phone in his pocket pressing rather harshly into his leg. Yet he could move his facial muscles in order to speak. Interesting.

Blackness returned in a moment as the jester hoisted him up off the floor roughly. His aggressor was not the taller of the two, so the man couldn’t hold him up off the ground, but sagging like the wilted bloom as he was, the intimidation in the motion didn’t lessen much. He let out a stiff breath against his collar, clenching his eyes shut. Since when in all of his years in Asgard and Odin knew where else did he become so peekish? The Midgard diet didn't constitute well with maintaining what Aesir strength he had remaining after Odin's decree, but he had more to him than this. He must have, unless the lesser trickster had just gone and sucked it out of him.

“Never said I wanted to kill you.” The growling voice in his ear rumbled through his Midgardian body’s chest, which, rather uncomfortably he noted, felt like it was rattling. “Not here.” The shrill laughter made his ears ring as he squinted at his attacker. “Not tonight. No, no, no. I want to watch you bloom.” A gloved hand cradled his chin, and were he in any other situation, he could have almost called it a lover’s caress. As it was, however, he would have loved at that moment to seen the man’s blood all over the floor, but the feeling in his right hand had only just returned. The arms were still useless, so that wouldn’t work out just quite yet. It would eventually, if he got his way.

“And you will bloom so beautifully,” the Joker said, his tone harshening again from where it had incrementally softened. “And that chaotic little bloom will turn this whole city upside-down.”

A humorless laugh managed to escape his lips. The face of the mask twisted downward, mimicking those strange faces that humans seemed to associate with theater. Back and forth like the flip of a coin: joy and misery. “And you expect me to do this all for you, yes?” He laughed again, harsher this time. He could feel his chest, and feeling was beginning to trickle down his shoulders.

His jester laughed also, but he obviously found less humor in it than Loki did. That pleased him greatly, and he smiled wickedly. In a push probably beyond what he should have been doing with his inexplicable body limitations at that moment, he surged up, throwing the man’s grasp off him and gripping him by the lapels to bodily throw him across the room. His attacker fell like a weighted sack against the far wall with a loud crash, but Loki had little time to revel in his feat. His legs crumbled beneath him, and he held out a hand to catch himself from falling while he all but folded in on himself. His body felt as if it were flattening.

The presence seemed to have gone out of his body entirely. He felt empty, like a light porcelain vessel that had been drained of drought and left to shatter. He didn’t even realize he was sucking in breath like a water-starved fish until he felt how his body sagged with each inhalation. But no air seemed to be getting to his lungs, no matter how much he struggled and fought to get. The room seemed shut off, and he all but collapsed as his captor reaffirmed a twisting grip on the arm that was not holding him up from the floor.

Jerking Loki’s arm to a painful angle, one that almost promised to dislocate if pushed any further, the villain pressed him into the floor. “Yes,” he growled to the back of the princeling’s head. “I do.” The Joker was the one laughing now, and it had all the ruthless humor in the world. Loki didn't find it funny, but knew that intrinsically that that was part of the joke. “And you won’t fight me tonight. You can’t. Do you want to know why?”

Loki remained silent, breathing in through his nose as his body shook with a sudden cold. Rage was there, but it was not strong enough to overcome the undulating sensory blackout his body was struggling with. His mouth was dry as a bone left to bleach in the desert, so he had no means of answering anyway, not when his tongue would have undoubtedly glued itself to his teeth.

“Because,” the Joker continued, giddy like a child but with far less childish ideas in mind, “on that nice long car-ride I got you to sleep through, I pumped enough methamphetamines to _kill_ ten men into your bloodstream, with a little bit of personal flair added in just for you. I have to admit, I’m amazed that you could even lift a finger against me.”

Loki let out an inhuman roar, he pushed what little grandeur he had left in his empty body to twist. Using his free arm, he flipped and pushed the man beneath him, his long shaking fingers going for the man’s throat as his freed arm throbbed at the shoulder. He gripped as tightly as he could, but he got the feeling that the strength that was currently choking his sick protégé for now would not last long enough for him to kill him like he oh so desperately wanted.

“I have suffered a thousand lives of failures and tortures,” he ground out as he panted, and some modicum of strength returned to him for a fleeting moment, and his grip sustained. “I have been silenced by he whom I hold dearest, I have had my children spurned from the moment they were born because of no other reason than because they are born of my will! I have suffered an eternity more than this, and will suffer an eternity more, but know this, jester, by my will I will not suffer you.” His captor gurgled, but there was gruesome chuckling in it, somehow, some way.

His muddled mind wondered too late why the trickster’s hands were not trying to pry his own from his neck. Only when the cold steel wedged between his ribs twisted did he know that the hidden dagger, _his own tool in so many battles_ , had been played at last. This time, much more literally than in others. He fought with his grip now as his mortal body struggled against the compounding damage. His Aesir health had been failing, and now what of it he could use on short notice was dwindling under the strain of the plot that had been executed so cleverly against him. The competence of some humans was sometimes surprising.

“You have earned your title,” he coughed out around the dagger still digging into his chest, and his hands slowly wavered in their grip. He tried to take a breath, but it caught harshly on the handle of the knife, which was pressed to the very brink of his skin. A pity, he thought idly. He'd been having trouble breathing before. This would certainly increase his difficulties.

A heavy fist collided with the side of his face, snapping his head to one side as he was knocked off his perch and sent sprawling across the floor. The dagger came with him, still dug and twisted in his flesh. He reached up a shaking hand to draw it out, but the strength he'd spent almost completely uselessly was gone, and his cold, shaking fingers just rested against the blood-soaked fabric of his suit. It would be ruined, undoubtedly, which was a shame. The ensemble was one of his favorites, and was one that Bruce Wayne had even complimented him for.

“You always had yours.” The Joker’s cruel mask peered down at him, before coming down closer one last time as they looked at one another from across the darkness of the room. “But now all your other reputations need a bit of bolstering.” The Joker knelt down, his hands rummaging through Loki's pockets until at last they came to the one containing his phone. Plucking it out, he fiddled with it for a moment, before turning the screen to face Loki.

“How about we start with Norman Danvers’ reputation, eh? He looks like he might need some TLC.”

The last thing Loki saw him do to the phone before he turned around was turn on the speakerphone as he started the call, after which point he walked away and began rummaging in his own pockets as the phone rang aloud in the silence of the room. While it was ringing in his hand, he drew something out of his pockets, making a quiet but triumphant noise as he flicked the cap off of the small lighter.

A little orange flame danced in the dark, and Loki began to realize what it was that was about to transpire. He turned his head, struggling to will the rest of his body to move after his shoulders. If he could get his arms underneath him, he could at least drag himself somewhere of use. But the Joker was not so distracted as to have missed his movement, nor did he seem set on his arson just yet. For just as he walked back over to plant Loki back flat on the floor with the heel of his shoe, the call was answered, and he flicked the lighter shut.

“Norman?” Bruce Wayne’s voice was tinny and strangely small-sounding over the speakerphone.

“Good evening, Mr. Wayne.” The Joker was smiling, though he was not looking at the phone or at Loki as he did. He seemed a million miles away, angry and stewing in some sick little corner of his thoughts as he spoke. Loki knew that place; he had been living in it for centuries. “I have a message to relay, if you’re not too busy.”

“What have you done with Norman?”

Loki would have been flattered if he weren’t explicitly aware of exactly why Bruce Wayne was all business when it came to dealings with the Joker. Everyone _should_ have been all business when it came to the Joker, but some people naively believed that if they played the came they could win. But still, there was something beyond tempered calm in the businessman’s voice that made Loki wonder if he actually was a bit concerned. It was likely that Wayne was concerned what Norman Danvers could tell a man like the Joker, regardless of how groundless a fear that was. Bruce Wayne didn’t know that, but it made it no less true. But even that logic did not seem to be the driving force behind the businessman's tone, and Loki was left trying to wallow through his confusion to figure out why.

The Joker laughed. “Oh you want to speak to Mr. Danvers?” He leaned back down, and just as Loki tried to roll out of his grasp he re-gripped the dagger, holding him quite still as he all but used it to pin Loki back to the floor like some wayward catch. “Let’s see what he has to say, then.”

Loki knew that the jester probably meant to make him cry out when he twisted the knife again, but all it managed to get out of him was a strangled, withering gasp. But instead of looking disappointed, his captor almost looked pleased, especially with the silence from the phone that ensued. Loki wondered what Bruce was doing, because the man certainly was not the type to hang up. Maybe if he got the chance, he would ask him later on. All the drama made it seem like he was going to be seeing him very soon anyway.

“Now,” he said, finally turning away from Loki to let him to the floor where he lay bleeding, “onto that message. It’s very simple, so I don’t think you’ll need to write it down.”

The phone was still quiet, but Loki could only guess that the call had still not been dropped yet because the Joker continued on. “If you value Norman Danvers and all of the things that he knows, which is quite a lot if you can ever convince him to talk, then you’ll come to the location of this phone. I know you know where it is, because you’re undoubtedly tracking it right now. Don’t worry; it will be staying right here with Norman. But if you don’t want to miss the punch, I suggest you hurry. This little apartment is going to heat up pretty quick, and Mr. Danvers isn’t in much of a condition to move.”

The phone thumped down onto the carpet next to Loki’s head, and he could see that the call was still active. He didn’t have anything to say, not even as his personal jester tossed the ignited lighter into the far corner of the single-room apartment. Loki couldn't even move his hand to hold the blasted thing that was mere inches from his head, and that frustrated him greatly. The dated wallpaper plastered to the far walls lit and burned slowly, bringing a dim red glow to the room as coils of gray smoke began to slither around the ceiling.

The fire alarm was on the other side of the room, but it would undoubtedly go off at any moment. He wondered how long it would take a firetruck to get to this part of Gotham, and how far the fire would have spread by the time they arrived.

“Everyone burns,” were the only parting words Loki got from his ward, but he vowed to himself that regardless of the outcome, he would have the last word in the end. The only issue standing between him and that end at that time was whether or not he would live that long.


	3. Chapter 2

Sentient thought was a fluid thing in the following hours for Loki. He perceived the passage of time, but with abstracted care. He knew that the smoke had nearly suffocated him by the time a darting black shadow came in and retrieved him. Having turned his face down towards the floor and at least collected his phone into a hand, he'd managed little more before the point of his rescue than to inch towards a heating duct in the floor that would be his last hope of breathable air until help arrived. Being lifted sent him into a hazy state, where his body responded to nothing and his brain only acknowledged the existence most extreme of stimuli: The roar of an engine that was most certainly not any kind of domestic rescue vehicle. The smell of clean air.

A voice, deep and grating, speaking to him. He couldn't strictly make out what was being said, but recognized the attempt at vocal disguising as being of Batman's particular flavor. It pleased him; the last thing he needed was to get into the police's hands, or Gotham city's in the form of hospitalization. Privacy was a pleasant thing when one could come by it, though he was left wondering how the caped crusader intended to deal with a stab wound and... what was it? Chronic methamphetamine overdose? He may have been a resourceful billionaire, but some instances were beyond thinking about in certain manners indicative of logic. Then again, he knew better than to question just how far Bruce Wayne's speculative logic could go.

He was moved again, and went deeper into the haze. He did not dream, but the view of the stars from Asgard was ever in his mind's eye. Like a backdrop to reality, it winked in and out of focus. He wondered if the All Father was laughing in light of his plight. He hoped so.

Asgard's stars faded, and the twilight lightened. He couldn't precisely feel his body or the pain it was undoubtedly in, but he could feel it being touched. The slight pressure of steady hands applying pressure to a wound, the tug of stitching that would close it. The voice he heard was not Bruce Wayne, in any of his forms. He caught a few fleeting words, tucking the few sparing ones he could remember away in his mind for whenever he awoke. The old man, gentle-voiced and steady-handed whoever he was, he would have to ask about Burma. From what Loki could discern he was telling a story, unfortunately to an audience that could not hear or interpret most of it. For some reason Loki wanted to fix that; for some reason Loki was interested.

When the old man seemed finished with his work, he stopped touching Loki. Without the stimulus, he faded out again into the stars. A shining nebula that he had once looked out at came to his mind. The Rosette Nebula, he believed the mortals called it, their artificially modified color photos doing little justice to what his Aesir eyes had seen in person. A heart of pale blue outwardly crowned with red; the heart impossible merged with the crown passionate and courageous. A beauty indeed among the roses of the stars.

Minute but sharp pain bleached the rose out to be replaced with near-cognizant whiteness as his mind ascended from the depths of space. He was so close to waking that he almost felt the urge to move his eyes behind his eyelids. But with the pain and immediate stimulus passed, he realized that his body was still heavy and languorous, but still somehow empty and devoid of substance on the inside. There was yet another new voice this time, a deep rich one that comforted like a salve. But now that Loki could actually muster up the mores to listen, the voice, as rich as it was, spoke in quiet, sharp, intelligent words. Mutterings of an intelligent man to himself in order to keep his thoughts straight.

Loki related; he had done that when he was a boy still struggling to internalize all his schemes. Which, to be fair, were very complex schemes for one so small as he had been when he had still done such things. He would have found it quaint, did he not understand on some level why it was more common among Midgard's men. They none of them lived to be as old as he had been even as a boy when he had muttered to himself, so they were more than excused. It took several hundred years, perhaps even a thousand if one wanted to perfect the task, to keep from needing to talk things over with one's self aloud, even quietly. But after so long, and Loki had truly had so very long and had long perfected the task himself, the mind became so complex as to be able to speak to itself without any need of communicating with the body. It was how the Gods kept from going mad at the sheer depth and complexity of their own heightened universe. The humans were just on the cusp of a great and celestial amount of enlightenment as they pushed further and further at the borders of their unknown, and they would need to learn that almighty of unsung skills before they could delve any further into the complexities of _everything_.

Apparently feeling the need to supply his Migardian-body-bound and re-awakened brain with oxygen, his body took a deep breath. Really, the damn thing had a mind of its own. It wore like hell too, because in spite of the numbness around his puncture wound, he could feel his head and his shoulder throbbing miserably from their mistreatment. The next time he saw that filthy mockery of a trickster he would happily kick his face in and rip his arm off for the trouble those two areas were causing him now, let alone gutting him and drugging to death in that order.

"I know you're in there."

Loki's thoughts slowed for a moment. He wondered if the human was telepathic; in the version of Earth Thor had visited it was not an impossibility. There had been a human, and older gentleman with sad story, a mutated gene set, and a mind as ancient as the waves that crashed against the Asgardian shore who could read minds. The minds of Gods had been difficult for him, but his efficacy could not be denied. He wondered now if this man with the science in his voice was more than he sounded.

"I've got you hooked up to about twenty different kinds of monitors, and the EEG is telling me loud and clear that you're awake."

This time it was actually by Loki's command that his body let out a short breath of air through his nose. It was about all that he could manage as far as snort went, what with the stiffness still in his torso from the massive puncture damage it had suffered. He really should have been healed by now, let alone able to wake himself up. But he wasn't healed, and as of yet couldn't quite manage to open his eyes, so the faux-snort would have to suffice.

He heard footsteps entering the room, and wondered at which of the three voices he knew could be coming in now. Was it the soldier-handed surgeon or Mr. Wayne himself? From the swiftness of the stride he would guess it was Wayne, as it would have been more likely that the older sounding surgeon would have even a more slightly hobbled step.

"Who are you talking to, Lucius?" Bruce's voice asked from somewhere near to Loki's left. To the left of the bed, then, it was to be assumed. The comfort of the surface he was on was far improved to what he had been sleeping on since the beginning of his time on Midgard, and far more decent than what he assumed a medical institution would offer. (How Midgard logic justified that he did not know, because certainly the Healing House in Asgard was home to the softest beds available save the All Father's, for the obvious reason of comforting the wounded or ill. But Loki had observed the stiff and to be honest rather repulsive treatment that Midgard hospitals offered, and was glad for whatever alternative he had been afforded, for he had no interest in vesting any time at any human hospital if it meant dealing with such discomforts.)

The man names Lucius laughed, a rich sound that relayed quiet amusement as clearly as it relayed the deep thought going on in the man's head. But now that Loki thought, he realized that he knew the name. Lucius Fox; technically Wayne Industry's CEO as appointed by Bruce after he returned from his years spent "dead". A man of science heading the company under whose hood Bruce Wayne could afford all of his supplies and designs. Cunning business strategy, if not a risky one were it to be uncloaked from someone on the inside. "I'm talking to our guest, Mr. Wayne. He may not be up and talking yet, but the fact that he has cognitive brain function is promising." There was a pause, but it remained brief. "And I think he can hear us pretty well, if what I thought just a second ago was a snort actually was one."

The mattress next to Loki's hip dipped as someone sat down on it, presumably Bruce. A warm hand touched his arm, and the skin on skin contact woke something up in him. Something small, that had been on the verge of waking anyway. But just that feeling, of someone else's warmth and his own in the touch of that hand reminding him that he was still in fact alive was invigorating, if only in a deeply mental way, probably bordering on metaphysical. But some computerized part of his brain wondered, if they'd taken off whatever shirts and coat he'd been wearing when he'd been rescued, how much other clothing was he missing because of all the medical goings on? Modesty was not an issue of his in particular, but for the sake of Norman Danvers' reputation it was probably a good idea to at least ponder over the idea. However there was also the instance to consider of just how much of an exception to Norman Danvers' usually strict rules Bruce Wayne could be.

"Norman, can you hear me?" He at least appreciated Bruce's willingness to test things for himself. He was not a trusting man, because he lived in an distrusting world. But he was also a self-reliant man in a self-reliant world, and would take words on faith only so long as he got to test the waters himself first.

Against probably far better judgement to stay still, quiet, and generally asleep, Loki managed to pry one eye halfway open. It felt like Odin's boot was sitting on his eyelid, doing a magnificent job of trying to keep it from opening. He prevailed in the end, and blinked once slowly to get his eye to focus a bit more. This whole damn body was completely discombobulated, and it needed to cease and desist _right now_.

Bruce's face was grim when it came into focus, but the face of Lucius just beyond Bruce's shoulder looked far more pleased. He could only imagine that Lucius was pleased because his task was generally speaking completed; the patient had survived and was returning to cognizance. Whereas, for the foreseeable future, Bruce's task was nowhere near finished.

"Welcome back to the world of the living, Mr. Danvers," Lucius said. His dark skin and keen eyes seemed to match his voice, and though Loki had no imagined image of him in his head, he could not have predetermined a better appearance to match. Fate was kind sometimes, and even if his hairs were graying on his temples, he could see that she had been very kind indeed to Lucius Fox. "We finally get to meet in person. I wish it were under better circumstances, but I have to admit my excitement. Mr. Wayne has told me a lot about you." From his sitting position, Lucius put his elbows on his knees and folded his hands, bringing them almost to eye level. They would have been, if Loki had but one more pillow under his neck. "Now I know why all of Gotham's highest and mightiest call you the Green-Eyed Monster. I mean no offense, by the way. I just can't help but be intrigued by people who are nicknamed after Shakespearean turns of phrase."

His other eye opened much easier than the first, until they were both wide enough for him to feel actually awake and present. "Though I have not heard that phrase myself," he said, the first words catching hard in his throat. He could taste smoke and ash on his tongue. "I will admit to having been called much worse things in my lifetime."

At that Bruce Wayne actually smiled, though it was a small, narrow thing that didn't reach his eyes. There was too much guilt dwelling there for the smile to be able to penetrate completely. It seemed, though, that upon indication by Bruce's wan smile, Lucius seemed assured that the two would be alright alone for a moment. He stood up, rubbed at what was an undoubtedly stiff back from hunching over his monitors for an incalculable amount of time, and made to go at least out of the room, though undoubtedly not too terribly far.

"I'll go have a cup of coffee with Alfred and the boys and bring back some breakfast. Just try to keep him on that bed, Mr. Wayne. He might be bright eyed, but his systems aren't nearly clean enough yet for him to be up and around." Bruce nodded, and Lucius' eyes turned to Loki. "Try to rest up that voice, too. You'll be needing it to talk to me later on. I have some questions that need answering."

Loki let the corner of his mouth curl up in a half-smile. The dark skinned man turned without another word and otherwise left the room silently, leaving the two of them in the silence together.

It wasn't until the grip on his arm tightened incrementally that Loki even became aware that Bruce had yet to let go of his arm. It wasn't a painful grasp, and was thankfully on the arm with the undamaged shoulder. But with Wayne's bowed head and thin lips, Loki could only imagine that the man was struggling with guilt. He wasn't sure what guilt Wayne was warranted to feel, considering Loki was perfectly equipped to get into trouble all by himself. The simple fact was, however, that this instance and this attack was not just on Loki; nor was it specifically on Bruce Wayne, much against what it probably appeared to be.

"I'm not dead," Loki said after a moment, which at least got Bruce to look at him. Loki tilted his head on the pillow in spite of how stiff his neck was. "The guilt you feel should be reserved for the dead you bury. You succeeded on both fronts; you have preserved a business ally, placed him in your debt, and your guise has saved another life. The night, I would say, was by no means a waste."

The grief did not abate in the man's eyes, but he could see curiosity slowly kindling. "Lucius said you might know. How?"

"It is quite literally, Mr. Wayne, my job to know things." His voice was slowly clearing the more he used it, and he'd long since swallowed the ashen taste of a burned property.

This time, there was a smile in Bruce's eyes but not on his face. "You haven't sold me out," he said, the amusement in his voice as well. The curiosity was taking over. Good: Loki could use interest to his own devices. It was, after all, so much easier to led someone astray when they were willing to be led to begin with. "Why?"

Loki smiled back coyly, but kept himself internally sober. Emotions didn't often run him amok, or even surface all that terribly much, but he could make it appear like he was showing them for the sake of successful and fortuitous interaction. If he could put all of the right indicators in all the right places, he might be able to work this to his advantage. "In regards to your particular approach to jurisdiction, Mr. Wayne, there is no higher bidder, harder hitter, or hand that reaches further. And, to be honest, I need you."

"Norman," Bruce said with a humorless laugh, "you know the biggest secret of one of the richest men on the planet, and that's the singular secret I know you have locked up in that head of yours. There's no telling what else you have cooped up somewhere else. You could potentially, through extortion or other means, be in five minutes the most powerful man on the planet. What on earth do you need me for?"

"I need to live."

The look in Bruce's eyes was a mix of confusion and subconscious understanding. Every sentient being had within them a will to survive and domineer over death for as long as they could. As it stood in its simplicity, it was already a strong defense, and would be even more so with further explanation. But Loki, complex and mercurial God that he was, was not willing to leave things simply. He needed Bruce to understand the honest desire that Loki himself had to live: one of the few wants that unerringly mounted over time and space. More importantly, now that there was the opportunity, he needed Bruce to _care_.

"Specifically, I need to live for a long and foreseeable future. It is not my intention now to extort you into protecting me, nor was it my intention even when I first discovered your little secret. My goal is to possess value in the form of knowledge in order to become invaluable; indispensable. That singularly is the one way that I will live long enough to figure out means to resolve my own problems. That has been my intention from the start, so every deep dark secret I know about all the pits and heights of Gotham and to an extent the world is working towards that end." He began to wonder if Wayne was ever going to let go of his arm; the man certainly didn't show any signs of intending to.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Bruce asked. Good, Loki thought. He was confused now; confused enough to need to sit on the matters that Loki had fed to him. But Loki didn't just want him to sit; Loki wanted him to stew, and stew on one particular idea. That little imp of a trickster might have done something undeniably useful after all in getting him into this perfect seat from which he could actually machinate something.

He took a short breath, as deep a one as he could manage to feign a sigh without hurting himself. "Because I failed." He looked at Bruce in silence for a moment, letting the statement and the bluntness and the self-inflicted responsibility of it sink in. He needed the caped crusader to believe that Norman Danvers was a good man, and what better way was there than acting like an honest one that was willing to admit mistakes when he had made them? It rankled against what would be Loki's personal alternative choices, but this right now was not Loki's game. It was Norman's. "Last night, as you saw, my plan failed. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but I've attracted the attention of someone that, like you, has no higher bidder. The problem is, to this one person, I have no apparent value. I am a man who dabbles in secrets; and here he was a man who knows them all anyway. Why should I catch his attention at all? There are dozens others like me; hundreds who could have just as easily done the same as I have done."

"The Joker went after you to get to me," the billionaire replied quickly, sounding angry and almost vehement. But he was not angry with Norman, rather it was a generalized anger at the injustice of the situation. Or at least what he perceived to be injustice.

Loki shook his head, finally just opting to sit up. He kept focused, and willed himself to ignore the pain thrumming beneath his sluggishness. It wasn't as substantial now that he could think his way around it unlike before when whatever had been in his system had been too much for his chemical physiology to handle. Still Bruce declined to let go of his arm. "No," Loki said, and their eyes locked and lingered on each other. "There's something else that you are not seeing in this, Mr. Wayne. Something very important."

"Norman, I think you need to relax for a second," his business associate responded, beginning to look worried in a way that had nothing to do with their problem with local villains. "You've had the roughest night imaginable, and are probably still suffering pretty heavily from the effects of it. Let me go get Alfred and Lucius, and we'll try to get you settled first before we go off on wild tangent theories."

"Please rest assured Mr. Wayne that if he was any more settled he would go back to being comatose," a voice said from the door. When Loki looked up it was Lucius that was standing there defending him with an impish flicker in his eyes. "And it's my professional opinion that he's been that way for long enough, so you might want to just let him be for now. The longer we can keep him awake, let alone this level of awake, the better."

Bruce's brows were knitted together, and his mouth was hung open in a small gaping frown. Apparently he had not been anticipating opposition on this particular point. His logic wasn't necessarily unfounded, and wouldn't have been under normal circumstances. These, however, were not normal circumstance, and as Loki watched Lucius re-enter to join them he knew that the elder gentleman knew that quite well.

"I'm afraid I am going to have to disagree with you on this, Lucius," Bruce said, his tone not harsh but unabashedly serious.

"With all due respect, Master Bruce, you shouldn't," another familiar voice said from the door just as Lucius re-claimed his previous seat next to Wayne. "Lucius is quite right, after all."

Loki had to resist the urge to smirk too openly at that, but gave up and managed an actual faint smile when he saw the tray that the butler had brought with him. Loki recognized his voice as the one that had told him the story, and knew that this must have been the Alfred character that Lucius had mentioned before. Laden with an armful of weighted tray, he did not look to be the seasoned soldier-figure that Loki had pictured. Yet again it was not what Loki had expected, but as he observed the minutiae of the man he realized that it could be no one else. The steady, calloused hands, the calm demeanor and stride; it all screamed of a militant and professional conditioning.

He couldn't help but feel some small piece of him fall into a sentimental thought when the butler poured and handed him a lean glass of water. If there was one thing about Asgard he missed, it was the courteous service he'd been entreated with.

"There you are, Mr. Danvers," Alfred said to him as he handed over the glass, making sure to keep hold of it until he was sure that Loki had a firm grip. "How's that side feeling?"

Loki nodded in thanks, taking a slow and furtive drink before answering. He knew that he had to take caution not to act rashly, even when drinking a simple glass of water. He had a room full of people willing to jump on him if he did even the slightest detrimental thing. It felt like being a child again; when ever of the many times he had hurt himself his mother would silently faun over him. She would remain quiet and not harp at him as other court mothers often did, but if he did the slightest thing to invoke her worry, that silence broke quicker than a clap of lightening could peal through the storming sky.

He set the glass in his lap as he spoke to the butler. "I would be lying if I claimed that it did not ail me, but I can claim quite plainly that it is far better than my previous alternative. Surely without your expert hand I would have bled out rather severely enough to be a danger. As I know, methamphetamines thin the blood and make bleeding out in any way a risky endeavor."

"Normally I would say you were right," Lucius interrupted as Alfred sat smiling on a chair further away. Fox's eyes were fixed on Loki, and he looked back with great interest. "But the chemical cocktail that's been clogging your system for the past fourteen hours was made up of more than just ten times the normal lethal amount of meth. I've identified several of the other chemicals and determined what effect they would have on you individually. I couldn't compute what their compounded effect would be, especially on you considering after ten times the amount of lethal meth you still managed to go on to survive a serious beating."

At that point, Lucius looked to Bruce, who had been watching him all along with a decent amount of interest. Obviously he was hoping for some explanation as to why he was being so mysteriously opposed, as well as an explanation for why Norman was even still alive. "That being said, Mr. Wayne, if this man is up and talking serious business after the lows he hit last night, I wouldn't chalk it up to chance. He's awake, and we need to work with that while we have the time."

"You make it sound like we're going to run out of time at some point, Lucius. What is it that you haven't told me yet?" Bruce asked, sounding almost distrusting of his CEO. Loki realized with probably good reason: Lucius Fox was a man who never said more than was necessary, even if he knew a great deal of otherwise useful information. And it was not until he was asked that he divulged said information, either.

"Something that I'm not yet sure of myself." He was looking at Loki, and for the first time Loki had seen Lucius' face was grave. "I've composed a list of the different chemicals that were in Mr. Danvers' bloodstream, but there was something off. There was a compound, I would say a toxin usually but it was far too complex for that, that I couldn't identify. To be honest, I don't know what to call it just yet. I took some blood samples, and I'm going to analyze them as best I can. The fact is, however, that this one thing may prove to be beyond the limits of my knowledge, Mr. Wayne. And I fear that the need to resolve this will present to you the need to shop around a bit. Who could help you and where they are I don't know, and for that I'm sorry."

That conclusion did not appear to sit well with anyone in the room, because the silence that followed was almost ringing with tension.

"Why?" Bruce finally broke the silence, and Loki was thankful. "What is it about this compound that you don't think you'll be able to figure out?"

Fox sighed, genuinely sounding aggrieved that he was considering a failure before he had even started. Loki would have pitied him were the whole situation not keyed into his own well-being. The jester had done something to him; had inserted some compound into his weakened mortal body that a man of great scientific knowledge could not understand. Had he not said something about a "bit of flair" just for him? From the yet-unspoken answer to Bruce's earlier question of why Lucius had made it sound as if time were a limited thing, it gave Loki the impression that the chemical, and its effects thus far and undoubtedly compounding effects in the future, could potentially prove lethal.

"You know what it is, Mr. Wayne," Loki said, his voice sounding distant to his own ears. His mind was moving too quickly to be bothered with intonation at that moment. He was too busy _understanding_. "You've begun to look into it yourself. You know as well as any that there are things in this world that cannot be explained by your science. There are a few of them that you yourself have encountered, but you have been documenting them as they have appeared globally. One day you'll live in a League of men who defy science." He re-focused himself, looking at the relatively evenly maintained expression on the billionaire's face. "This is just the beginning."

Alfred laughed, and shattered whatever hopes they'd had of digging themselves into a morbid trench with the conversation. Loki looked at him curiously, but found that his humor was not a false one; nor was it meant to break the silence for the sake of saving them from too serious thoughts. "You should keep that one, Master Bruce," he said, pointing a finger at Loki. "He really does a bang-up job of knowing just about everything."

"I intend to."

Loki looked to Bruce then, this time just the slightest bit confused. "I fail to see what you mean by that," he replied, looking cautiously around the men assembled. Lucius and Alfred seemed to be having a perfectly silent conversation all on their own which he would have loved to interrupt but had no inkling as to how to, and Bruce seemed perfectly content to just look at him for a moment. He might have been charmed if not knowing something that was apparently obvious weren't such a peeve of his.

"You told me earlier not to feel guilty, or something of the like." Bruce shrugged, squeezing gently at the handful of Loki's arm that he had still failed to let go of. Honestly, was the man touch-starved or something? It was almost making him uncomfortable, but he brushed the thought away. He could handle being touched; it was merely his disassociation with it for so long that made the sudden appearance of someone willing to physically be attached to him so strange. "You shouldn't worry; I don't go chasing after guilt unless its due. I deserve to feel guilty about this, Norman, for one very important reason. I invited you to dinner last night because I had hoped to propose to hire you exclusively. As Alfred said, you're very good at your job, and I don't much like the thought of you doing it so well for people other than me and for businesses other than Wayne Enterprises."

"I'm flattered, rest assured," Loki replied, letting his tone reflect the questioning still tugging at his tongue.

"You shouldn't be," Bruce continued seriously. "Because I did something completely foolish and failed entirely to ask you when I had the time. If I hadn't been so distracted and actually remembered, it is possible that last night's ordeal could have been entirely avoided."

He couldn't help but snort derisively. All three of the men in the room seemed more than a decent bit startled by his reaction. "With all due respect, Mr. Wayne, it would not have done you much good. Even if you had remembered and we had gone on discussing late into the night, I still would have at some point ended up a staggering drunken mess. I think that regardless of what fare I chose to order or did not order, the sedative would have been included regardless. Time and means were the only waiting game for that particular card."

"Sedative?" Lucius asked. "There were lots of chemicals in your blood last night, Mr. Danvers, but none of them were anything short of a figurative equivalent to a Molotov cocktail."

Loki couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Do you honestly think that I, under any even meager state of sobriety, would have allowed myself to be manhandled into a taxi by a scar-faced cabby without some manner of a fight? I may not be a soldier or a warrior by any definition of yours, Mr. Fox, but I am by no means a lamb to be led to slaughter."

"We did manage to gather that in the least, Mr. Danvers, make no mistake." Loki's gaze turned to the butler, whose hands were folded in his lap like a true gentleman. "Even when you probably weren't anything close to sober you put up one hell of a fight. I've seen a fair share of stab wounds in my day, and you don't get one that bad without showing enough spirit to anger your opponent."

Lucius chuckled at that, and Loki couldn't help but smile vaguely. Undoubtedly whenever he had the time, the stories that the old butler had about Burma would be undoubtedly interesting.

"I think that you can consider your offer, if it still stands, accepted, Mr. Wayne. Regardless of what mistakes you think you made last night by having other things on your mind." Loki observed him for a moment, gauging his reaction. Perhaps he hadn't yet caught on to all that he had missed and to all that Loki had seen. But he was still maintaining his competence, and his composure in spite of it. Loki could grow to respect him for that if he lived long enough. For now he'd done all that he could to curry favor; he'd placed his "heart" on his sleeve, made an attempt at what would appear to be brutal honesty. His cards were supposedly on the table, and all he could do was wait to see what men like Bruce Wayne, Lucius Fox, and Alfred Pennyworth would do in response to them.

Almost in a comically predictable motion, the three men looked to one another. Not for confirmation, perhaps, but rather just to see what the others thought on the matter. Loki could tell that all of them approved without having to look at them, so he didn't bother staring like a lost child even if the impression that would give them was tempting. Norman Danvers, as established, was no sheep. He was, however, compared to the actual Loki a much softer man. That also did not mean, however, that at points and in places he did not have his fair share of sharp edges.

"I'll have one of the boys go to the office and start on your paperwork," Bruce replied with a tilt to his lips that looked like he was trying very hard to suppress a grin.

Considering the circumstances, it pleased Loki to no end to just grin back. He was always one to enjoy smiling in a bad situation; it came with hundreds of years of experience in raising hell. It unnerved most when he smiled like that, but Mr. Wayne, much to Loki's pleasure, seemed not even remotely bothered by it. Perhaps this match would turn out to be far more than he had ever anticipated. He liked that idea, but there was only one way yet to test it before he would dive in.

"Wonderful, Mr. Wayne. It will be a pleasure to work with you," he said, pitching his voice low. Really, with his body feeling so much improved from last night as his control returned and the sluggishness wore off, it was making him a bit wily. He decided that part of Norman Danvers' more private personality could accommodate some wiliness; it made life so much more fun. And, perhaps, it would make "business" much more fun as well. "But there is one last thing: if you insist upon touching me for extended periods of time, you could at least be chivalrous about it and hold my hand like a gentleman."

Much to his delight, Bruce immediately did just that, and with a very coy little smile on his face that refused to be contained. It made a warm little ember glow in the empty pocket that sat in Loki's chest. "Considering all the trouble you've been through on my behalf, Mr. Danvers, it is the least I can do."


	4. Chapter 3

It took Loki two days of grudging adherence to the advice of his three attendants to stay in bed before he managed to get back on his feet. The first day had been one worth spending on the overtly large bed sitting nigh almost unused in Bruce Wayne's master bedroom; there was no way that even as mentally lucid as he felt that he would be able to convince them that his body was remotely capable of fulfilling his needs. He had no hope of convincing any of them because it was a blatant and undeniable lie, and fortunately for them was not one that he felt the need to twist around with his silver tongue. The idea of mending as he was able was one much more endeared to his heart and his methods, so he had played the willing patient and settled for achieving the goal of having the butler's Burma escapades recounted to him while his body rested.

Day two, or at least the good majority of it, had been a bit more difficult for him to handle. The paperwork that arrived for him in the later afternoon had served as a lovely distraction, but only lasted so long and had taken far too much time in coming to keep his mind from pondering over mounds of mischievous minutiae in his boredom. He had to exert a massive amount of self restraint to keep from causing problems, even small ones as they would have undoubtedly been. In the end it had been Alfred, yet again his savior from drowsy silence, who had come up with the brilliant idea of introducing Loki to the true wonders of television. Loki really had never had any misgivings about what it was or why people possessed it, much to no one's imminent surprise. Considering he was adept enough at manipulating technology to have his own digital web of information sources with which to make his way in the world, it would have been a monstrous and almost comical error on his part to be uneducated in the area of televised media. He had been, however, highly maladroit at finding anything provided on "TV" amusing. It could also have been said that the selection of American television that related to anything of his interest was diminutive, which was the only reason why Alfred had been left to navigate what they sat down and watched.

Eventually Alfred had forsaken the standard channel-based television and had moved onto a more promising venue. Netflix, as Loki by general means knew it to be, was a much more promising prospect than dozens of overly masculine sport and blatantly falsified news channels. He still had no preference when it came to what was listed, but by that point Alfred had expected that and proceeded on to something he assumed would be enjoyed in his absence. Alfred was, after all, in and out all day due to the maintenance and general running that he had to do for the penthouse. It was only whenever he chose to take a break, whether to eat lunch or have a cup of afternoon tea with Loki, that he ever actually watched what was on. Loki, however, with much more time on his hands and much more boredom to account for, watched with as much rapt attention as he deemed the shows were even worth.

Considering he had gotten up at approximately four in the morning after being unable to stand the thought of another second spent asleep, that left him a lot of time with which to look for something worthy of his multitude of time. The first several hours, in which Bruce had still been fluttering about the house before he set off to work, were spent blindly trundling around the cable channels. Shortly after Bruce left the building was when Alfred returned to his company with a small breakfast for the both of them in hand and discovered the ire beginning to steep in the penthouse master suite as Loki grew increasingly irritated with the lackluster turnout the television was giving forth.

Loki voiced such over a cup of masterfully made tea, to which Alfred assured a solution to the problem could be arranged.

 _Downton Abbey_ succeeded in distracting him until the butler returned again at noon with lunch. The Englishman, naturally, was pleased with Loki's relatively glowing review of the series as he knew it thus far with all of the listed episodes under his belt. Of course, being a tough critic on all of life in general, he had managed to find faults and dislikes, though they even for him were considerably minor. Alfred was more than willing to discuss all of them over a bowl of some rather interesting sage and lentil soup, as well as leave Loki with a few more recommendations along with another cup of tea.

When again Alfred returned with the paperwork that had come in for the fortification of Loki's employment by Wayne Enterprises, he found his patient struggling through the last few minutes of the first season finale of the televised series revolving around Sherlock Holmes. Loki proclaimed stalwartly that _Sherlock_ had damn well better have its second season underway, or he would make good on the threat to find the writers and string them up by their tendons, only to find out that the second season had thankfully been released, but had not yet made its way to the other side of the pond or Netflix's particular corner of the world wide web.

He deigned to multitask on the paperwork; splitting his attentions between that and worming a hole into the TV to access the internet and pilfer copies of the second season episodes. It was, after all, the singular most strenuous thing he had done all day. (Because Alfred, though understanding, declined to believe him when he claimed that the first season finale caused him physical ail.)

The second season finale was worse, and it made Loki want to string the writers up by their tendons no less than before.

Bruce returned literally not moments after he had left the state of positively murderous, and Loki was forced to abandon his foul mood for the promise of the day finally becoming engaging in a way that did not involve a television or stupidly well-written characters. Surprisingly Bruce showed him sympathy, and not just for being bedridden. Apparently he too had fallen to the same foil at the hands of _Sherlock_ , which made Loki feel at least a little less blighted.

His first make for physical exertion was made that evening when Loki insisted on getting up and sitting at the dining table like an actual person. Bruce obliged, but supplanted the majority of Loki's efforts when he opted, as any man could in the comfort of his own home, to dine in the master suite. The room was large enough that it housed its own small furnished coffee nook naturally, which that evening Bruce chose to utilize in order to house the light fare Alfred supplied them for dinner. Loki noted the choice, and questioned if it was for his sake singularly. He only hoped mildly that it was not the case so he wouldn't be obligated to feel quite so flattered.

"Actually there's more than one good reason for us to be dining in here tonight," Bruce had assured him, a small sharply cut sandwich in his hand. "The first is honestly for you, because even though I can tell you're feeling better, I still can't justify having you move around too much with the amount of damage you took. You haven’t healed _that_ completely yet."

After Loki had politely swallowed his own mouthful, he replied. "Your sentiment is appreciated, equally as is your hospitality. But there truly is no need to baby me, Mr. Wayne. I understand that I am now your employee, and thus your responsibility, but the fact is that the extent to which you seem to have taken me on as your responsibility is extensive beyond the means you can justify." He looked the businessman in the eye for a moment, letting the silver needles of his words sink in. "Considering, particularly, the amount of risk you are taking with the _personal_ matters such as I know of."

"That's one of the reasons I am 'babying' you, Norman," Bruce said over a short sigh, looking no less determined in spite of the sharp point Loki made. "Not because I think you are inept at functioning alone, quite the opposite is obvious due to your reputation, but because, as our now joint _business_ enemies have made very clear, you are an asset to me the likes of which I cannot afford to let be replaced or meddled with." Bruce did not look away from him as Loki's gaze lingered and even as it grew inquisitive.

"Not to mention," Bruce added after a moment, the barest hints of a smirk setting the tiniest wrinkle to the side of his mouth, "my interns are hosting a gala in the rest of the penthouse this evening to spread their wings a bit and prove their competency to the rest of Wayne Enterprises’ business associates. My presence needs to either be explicitly absent or completely unobtrusive for it to be a successful move on their part." He waved a hand at their makeshift dining arrangements, as if the gesture would help to further elucidate an already enlightened situation. "Hence our picnic."

Loki leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers beneath his nose and thinking for a moment, a wry smile on his face. If there was one thing that amused him about Midgard, it was certainly their idea of a party. Their concept of a gala was certainly for him a more enjoyable endeavor than the mead-washed shams of Asgard. And though, truthfully, the alcohol was not nearly as good, the behavior of the participants was far more tolerable and in his opinion far more interesting. So he pondered then, his sandwich abandoned for the moment, if not perhaps attending this little shindig could be of use to him. If, say, he was successful in proving his health this evening within the safety of the Wayne Penthouse, perhaps the next morning would prove dawned with a little more freedom. Perhaps even freedom enough for him to get some work done, heaven forbid. Being shut up even for two days was enough to set the internal mechanisms Loki had set up off more than one degree, and he disliked that strongly.

Apparently his silence at least provoked Bruce into considering what it was Loki could be thinking about. Though, thankfully, there was not enough given away for him to be able to tell strictly from Loki's expression. He may have been as human as Odin wanted him to be, but that did not mean that he was not still Loki and could not veil his emotions like the best of them. Instead, Bruce said, "You look positively fiendish, Norman. What are you thinking about?"

"I'm recalling," Loki started slowly, unfolding his hands and resting his arms languidly by his sides as he settled his fingers back together in his lap, "how unfortunate an experience discovering how much I despise television was. I mean no offense to your collection of films or access to assorted internet entertainment providers, but I do believe that if I spend another day as I did today, I will positively turn into a vegetable and never rise again." He looked pointedly at his host, though not unkindly. "And I think, now, that I simply must prove my health to you to keep you from insisting that I suffer such a fate."

Bruce chuckled, seeming to get the gist of Loki's argument and settling back in his own seat to take a considering look at his guest. "Alfred told me about your escapades in Netflix today. I’m still not terribly comfortable with you being up and around. You suffered a severe stab wound on top of one of the most intensive poisonings I’ve ever seen _the day before yesterday_. The fact that you’re still alive is somewhat beyond belief, let alone wanting to be up and around so soon.” The billionaire shook his head to himself, a small smile still on his face that somehow managed to not come off as condescending. Loki marveled at how the other man managed it while he waited for his actual answer. "But if the little voice in the back of my head that constantly spouts Lucius is at all to be believed, he would probably say that letting you around in the house is the lesser of many evils. I would consider it under normal circumstances were it not for the gala.” 

The heir laughed quietly to himself. “To which I know Lucius would also say that not much harm could come of you at _this_ dinner party." Bruce held up a hand just as Loki began to smile, his expression sobering somewhat. "But seeing as I still have reservations, I’ll arrange for you and me to be there on one condition."

In response Loki's brows winged up, and he blinked slowly. "Just the one?" he inquired. "Your trust in me, and my inherent ability not to get myself killed, is at this point somewhat staggering."

That at least got Bruce to smile just a bit, but the little thing was still predominantly overshadowed by the seriousness he was garnering. "Believe it or not, Norman, my trust in you is nearing absolute. The reason why the paperwork took so long to get in today was partially because I, and several of my staff, spent the majority of the morning doing an extensive background check on you. Usually I'm not too comfortable with people who have only the barest minimum for a background, which was what you appeared to have at first glance." 

Loki smiled thinly, trying to make it look apologetic instead of smug. There was, at least, a decent amount of earnest pleasure in it at the idea of Bruce Wayne having the brains to not trust the given record. Thankfully for his own safety Loki had been thorough enough that even the most determined detective could likely not have discerned his origins without he himself explicitly expressing them. 

"But the further we looked into your immigration records, the more you took shape." Bruce's tone was nearing appraising at that point, and Loki had to struggle not to be flattered in spite of the knowledge that this 'intricate' ruse was but child's play for him. "Don't get me wrong; you hid the pertinent aspects of your past well enough to not worry your customers, even though it probably wouldn't have hurt your image that much." At that Bruce chuckled, and Loki did his best to look sober in remembrance of the facts he had fabricated.

Loki smiled humorlessly, a bit too much of his own character getting caught up in his voice. "Well, seeing as you've done all your research, you should know perfectly well that it wasn't my future client base that I was concerned about when I changed my name. Ljótur Guðson isn't a name that would get me further than my own grave with the attachment it has to my father." Bruce hummed at that, but made no other comment on it. "And besides; I don't know how much I could stand having my name pronounced incorrectly every which way. Icelandic is not generous to speakers of American English."

"Norman Danvers is admittedly far easier on the tongue." A little twitch of a smile lightened the billionaire's face. "Almost as easy as the man is on the eyes."

A light chuckle escaped him, and he gave his employer a sidelong glance. "Now, now, Mr. Wayne. You're making it sound like the one condition you're placing this agreement under is of a less than savory nature." He raised one brow slowly, letting the curve of his smile speak for his amusement.

"Depending on how the public looks at it, it could turn out that way." At that Loki's other brow raised once more, genuine intrigue beginning to simmer at what Bruce was getting at. "It's a somewhat risky move on my part, but it should be worth it for your health." Loki remained silent for a moment, begging without speaking for the billionaire to continue. "That is, Norman, my one condition: all you have to do is promise me you'll stay at my elbow for the night so that I can keep an eye on you. My faith in the trust fund brigade has somewhat lessened in recent years."

Loki’s mouth opened in a silent ‘ah’ as he mulled over the term. He’d had far uglier company plastered to his elbow if he was to be honest with himself, and as much as he balked at the idea he could see that moderation of it that made it by general terms a just condition. He tapped the tips of his fingers together, looking abstractly at nothing for a moment before back at his host.

“I believe I’ll accept,” he replied, and Bruce seemed thankful even in his silence. “This agreement, however, raises one of many problematic questions.”

This time it was Bruce who remained silent with brows raised, his expression digging for an explanation.

“If I am to attend this gala, I would hope that you do not intend to allow me to do so in such a state as I am in right now.” The curious look given to him made him come to terms with the fact that as clever as the other man was, he had not yet strictly grasped Loki’s qualm. “That is to say, dressed in far from finery and smelling of the lack of showers I’ve taken.”

“Ah,” the other man said, finally seeming to pick up on the train of thought. The smile that soon followed, however, let Loki know that even though the topic had surfaced quickly, it had not gone entirely unanticipated. In fact if the smugness in the smile was any indicator, it seemed that Bruce had taken a decent bit of time to heed that very topic, and find a solution for it which pleased himself so greatly. “Yes, that _is_ something that we should take care of.”

“ _We_?” Loki quoted a bit dryly. “I mean no offense to you Mr. Wayne, but I was unaware that your condition for this evening applied to my bathing attempts as well. Had I known I would have been more careful in my consideration.”

Bruce laughed lightly, seemingly more humored by the joke than he was embarrassed by its implications. “Tempting, Norman, believe me. I really only meant to say that I agree that _you_ should bathe before I introduce you to the business world as an official partner of Wayne Enterprises.” He motioned vaguely towards Loki’s person, which was still clad in the borrowed pair of pyjamas that Alfred had allotted him. “And that you will undoubtedly need something else to wear, as welcome as you are to whatever clothing of mine you need to borrow until you can replace your own wardrobe.”

Loki hummed at that, having forgotten to consider even in his bored musings the cost of his lost property. He assumed that the majority of his possessions had been ruined by the fire that had ravaged his apartment; a quandary which seemed confirmed by Bruce’s mentioning of him needing to replace his wardrobe. He knew that Bruce had included no personal judgment on the clothes Loki owned and wore because on more than one occasion the other man had remarked how becoming and professional his choices were. Even though Loki was under his roof until he could find a new place to reside, there was no need for the billionaire to become so anal as to deem all of Loki’s wardrobe unacceptable. He was left pondering, therein, over what he was to wear in the meantime and what other property had been lost.

For, though his Gotham apartment had been home to almost nothing valuable to his business, it had been home to some more personal items. His sentimental attachment to them, though small, made them a somewhat sore loss to him when compared to the banality of his other earthly possessions.

“I suppose I shall have to do quite a bit of shopping around,” he said after his silence spent in thought, rubbing a hand over his brow. He would be glad to get the damnable grease off his skin; he felt like a buttered pig. “A pity, really; I did so enjoy that suit I got stabbed in, and I do so _loathe_ having to shop for clothing.”

Bruce snorted at him, shaking his head. “You make it all sound so arbitrary.”

Loki looked back at his company, tilting his head a bit. “All things considered,” he said, “it is arbitrary. I’m alive now, am I not? The stabbing is over, the wound is healing. What matters now is neither that nor the clothes and other possessions that I lost in a fire that otherwise did me no damage.”

“What matters now,” Bruce finished for him as he stood and offered a hand to Loki to help him stand, “is that you stay alive, stay healing, and get restored to what you were before you lost everything.”

He did not have the lack of manners to deny the helping hand up, but said no more as his lips thinned over a comment he could not afford to let slip. But the thought bounced around in his head, keeping his unspoken statement close to mind as he allowed himself to be escorted to the master bath.

_Do not set your goals too high, Bruce Wayne. Even your wide jurisdiction does not to Odin justify your hopes to restore me in full._

ǁ _harmr meðal stafkarlar_ ǁ

The relatively mild chatter of Gotham’s aristocracy was like music to Loki’s ears compared to the din of Asgard’s mead halls. Instead of the raucous discord of a thousand men shouting over each other and clubbing their tankards together, there was instead the tittering laughter of people attempting to remain aloof yet involved as they tapped the crowns of their champagne flutes together on behalf of empty words founded on the lurking threat of competition. Perhaps Loki’s whims, once he was restored to his throne as the God of Mischief, could find an ally in this construction of capitalism which drove men to become such intelligent little sharks.

Even as a dragon amongst sharks, Loki felt the threat of their influence in their veiled glances. He was a wounded dragon, bleeding in the ocean and far from shore. To them, thus, he was just another ingot of fuel to be consumed.

Thankfully, he’d had the opportunity and the wisdom to make an ally of the greatest shark of them all. And though many of the other, smaller and more reckless ones would still try to bite at his tattered wings, they would not press far in their pursuit for fear of being consumed in turn.

A tall crystal flute of golden champagne was given into his long fingers, and he took it without heeding it for a moment. Bruce’s hand was still hovering about his elbow, just close enough in proximity for Loki to be very much aware that he was there but not so attached as to raise immediate suspicions about them. Regardless of the safe distance they were technically standing at, Loki took a pervasive glance around the faces in the room to see if he could discern any that may be a threat. He knew some of them from reports he had gathered, but none of them knew of any persona of his outside of Norman Danvers. Some had a fleeting business relationship with him, though none of them were lofty enough to have ever considered hiring him personally so soon after his succession into Gotham’s upper echelon.

Some of the more acidic glances thrown Bruce Wayne’s way told that, though they had not been considering it so soon, some of them had indeed been considering. Bruce, thankfully, seemed as unfazed as Loki felt. Small angry fishes were barely a problem compared to the storm that they had just weathered. 

“Judging by the looks we’re getting, I would wager that you’ve done business with more than a few of the people in this room,” Bruce intoned from next to him, his voice just low enough not to carry into the eager ears of nearby listeners. “Please tell me that you haven’t shared any of my particularly dirty secrets.”

Loki scoffed quietly, taking a short sip of the champagne he’d been given. It was of high quality; sharp on the tongue but full bodied as it sat dancing on his palate for a fleeting moment. “Whatever dirty secrets they think they could get out of me are nothing compared to the dirty secrets I have locked up on all of them.” He took another sip, this time not luxuriating in the sensations of good alcohol. “The reason why they’re all so nervous is because they know it.”

The vigilante next to him chuckled, actually daring to put a hand on his arm. “Then I think we can get away with being a bit more obvious about ourselves. If they’re too frightened to try to curry you back into their folds, they’ll be too frightened to question.” Loki could practically hear the chimerical demureness of his smile without even needing to look.

When Loki did look, it was strictly at Bruce’s eyes, which were dancing with more than a fair share of gloating mirth. “So am I to be your ornament, now?” he asked, working his tone to sound amusedly affronted. “Had I known _that_ was what you were in this for, I would have upped my rates.”

Bruce raised a brow as he took the liberty of enjoying his own drink for a moment. “Are a few figures added to your salary really all that would change that?” he asked with a smirk and a subconscious lick of his lips. Loki couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much fun flirting post-mortal-wounding.

“You figure that one out, _detective_ ,” Loki replied, smiling sharply at Bruce for a moment before turning to greet Alfred, whom he had seen trying to approach some moments ago. As a butler, it was sadly simple to forcibly distract him with requests, and it seemed like the entire assembly of people between Mr. Pennyworth and his employer had been intent on filing some manner of complaint.

Loki took the liberty of welcoming him into a relatively calm pocket of the ball with a hand, which the elder gentleman gladly took as he set down a light tray now empty of hours de oeuvres. “Well Mr. Wayne,” he started, “your interns are certainly causing a fuss.” Bruce’s inquisitive look was all that it really took to get the man to elaborate, but with the modest smile on his face Loki knew that it was more of a positive statement than a negative one. “I do believe they’ve taken all of their guests by surprise; their preceding reputations of partying and joviality apparently do not do their professionalism justice.”

“A reputation, if I recall correctly, which was your idea to fabricate in the first place, Alfred,” a sprightly voice intoned from a brief parting in the crowd a short distance away. Through the corner of his eye Loki watched the young speaker approach, recalling and recognizing him not for the first time as Bruce’s eldest and probably most well known intern. For a garden-variety information broker, finding material on him had been all but too easy. For Loki it had been equally easy, but his orchard of information had far more fruit borne in it.

“Every idea is my idea,” Alfred replied as one of the other wait staff made to refill the platter, “so long as it’s a good one, Master Grayson.” The butler nodded to the three of them briefly before excusing himself back to his duties after the tray had been refilled, taking a deep breath as if to school himself for the oncoming requests.

Both Bruce and his intern chuckled, and Loki smiled politely while his thoughts sped off in other directions from the small talk and pleasantries. Specifically, he was poring over what tidbits he could dredge up to move the conversation away from the banalities he would much rather not suffer through. The company aside, his patience for such things only covered so wide of a berth.

“And who is this tall drink of water?” The eyeing he was getting from the young man, though probably meant to be flattering on less-suspecting quarry, barely went far enough to even amuse him. A lifetime or several thousand of nine realms of bad pick up lines usually made one more callous towards miserable attempts.

Nonetheless, it took Loki a moment to realize that, in the span of his lengthy internal considering, no more than a pair of seconds had passed. Thankfully which meant that he had not left the company wanting in his mental absence as he was wont to do at times. Heaven knew his knuckles had known the switch on more than one occasion for doing just such a thing in much less forgiving company and circumstance.

“Dick,” Bruce inserted, and Loki was mildly flattered to note that the elder of the two businessmen was even slightly unamused by the younger’s thinly veiled appraisal, “this is Norman Danvers: our newly contracted informations expert.” The look Bruce spared him a moment later was verging on apologetic, though the apology was unnecessary. Fandral was far worse of a flirt, and Loki had suffered through far too many centuries of knowing him to be bothered by much. “Norman, this is Dick Grayson: my senior executive intern.”

Dick flashed him a winning smile, but did not extend his hand for him to shake as most others would have. The smile, likewise, did not quite reach his eyes regardless of how mirthfully they glinted. It interested him as to why, and what the young man thought he was going to get away with.

“If you didn’t already know,” the intern noted a bit flippantly. There was even a bit of bitterness in his tone, though it was very well masked under his critically managed visage of charm.

Loki did his best to widen his smile and sweeten it rather than thin it dangerously, but the complete effort was not achieved, as made obvious by the almost instant wavering in the haughty resolve of the young Grayson’s eyes. Satisfied that his smile had done its work, he looked to Bruce so as to spare what little was left of the young man’s resolve. The corporate heir seemed only amused.

“Well,” he drawled with the shrug of a shoulder, “I only dabble here and there. Though I must say, for as dashing as you surely look in that suit, Mr. Grayson, it is quite easy to see the acrobat in you.” He looked sharply back at the younger man. “Your implied physique is an almost dead giveaway.”

The young man at least had the decency not to pale like an affronted dame. He did maintain a moment of respectful vigil in response to Loki’s statement, but it was not meant to last long with the intrigue that was kindling in his eyes. Common knowledge was not something Loki bothered to deal with, and he hoped to make that obvious about his character from as much of the beginning as possible.

“I’m honestly impressed, even though I shouldn’t be so much as I should be embarrassed with myself. Bruce obviously made the right choice in hiring you, and I suppose that should have been indication enough.” At that point, finally, the young man offered his hand. Loki was more than pleased to accept it. “Welcome to Wane Enterprises, Mr. Danvers.”

After their firm handshake, Dick looked to Bruce, a lightly pouting expression on his face. “But you did leave me a bit up the creek on that one, Bruce,” he whined petulantly, and Loki wondered not for the first time just how the twenty-three year old had made it so far in the business machine with such a personality as he had. “You could have at least told us he was as sharp-tongued as he was handsome.”

Loki made no attempt to hide that he rolled his eyes in response to the younger man’s accompanying flirtatious wink.

“In all fairness, Dick, you deserve it,” Bruce replied, his tone lightly terse but lacking any sincere distaste, humorous as it would have been. “It’s rare enough that _I_ can instill in you some modesty, let alone find someone else that can do so just as easily on top of actual professional skills.”

Dick laughed with a shrug. “Can’t afford to go listening tonight, Bruce. Maybe I’ll pick back up on the lessons later tonight, but for now the little nestlings are supposed to be spreading their wings.” Loki couldn’t help but hope that they weren’t flying too soon or were trying anything too extreme; he knew how it felt to fall from the nest with no mercy.

With only a respectful nod the young man disappeared back into the crowd, leaving Bruce and Loki to stare after him for a quiet moment. The vigilante sighed, his age showing for a brief moment in the fine lines slowly beginning to gather about his eyes. This intern, though one of the most inarguably competent rising stars in all of Gotham, was just as inarguably a handful.

“Do you think I scared him away?” Loki asked, leaning in with the slightest smile tingeing into his voice in an attempt to get the other man away from his own mind. Bruce Wayne was a man after his own heart: one with far too much to think about. “I wonder if my Green-Eyed reputation should precede me more than it seems to have done. It may have spared him some shock.”

Bruce merely shook his head, the tail end of his sigh turning into a chuckle that accentuated his fledgling age lines in a much more flattering smile. “The only reputation that precedes you is the only one that matters.” Loki was puzzled by the comment, if only minutely, and observed that as Bruce looked at him in that moment, the other man seemed to be searching for the presence of any dirt on his soul from where he had buried his secrets. Loki was sure that deep down his soul was covered in filth, but he had power-washed several of the top hundred layers so as to at least make it appear as if those dirty little dredges didn’t exist in the deepest parts of himself.

“You are too kind to me, Bruce Wayne, and not for the first time surprisingly so,” he muttered, taking a sharp swallow of his champagne as he looked away. He wasn’t made nervous by the other man’s glance, rather only by himself. One of the few problems he had almost never run into in Asgard was people caring to scrutinize him on a consistent basis, or bothering to waste the time trying to. That lack of regard, to an extent, made him ill-favored towards heed for his person whenever he encountered it. Even when, in this case, it may have been with good reason and even better intent.

“Have I scared you off now?” A gentle hand rested on his back, a characteristically mortal warmth seeping through the fabric of his suit. Bruce’s hand, purposefully but carefully placed, warmed the over-sensitive skin of the exit-half of his healing wound, even as it sat bound in thin gauze beneath his primly pressed dress shirt.

After a moment Loki chuckled, looking back over his shoulder at his host. “It takes a great deal to frighten _me_ away,” he said dryly. “But it does make many men squirm in their knickers to come under scrutiny by someone as shrewd as you.” He smiled a bit, if only to relay that he wasn’t strictly unbalanced by their brief moment of uncertainty. “Or perhaps I am so unused to being admired that I’m over-defensive. I have been told by others that it is not outside of my character to be so.”

“I don’t think you’re over-defensive at all,” his companion answered after a considering hum. “Not in a city like Gotham, anyway. You yourself are just being shrewd, though I am sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable.” At least he sounded earnest, if not a bit self-justified in his manner. Then again, Loki could see where often it was a necessity for Bruce to be self-justified, when obviously despite the protests of the ‘commonwealth’, without him Gotham would be in ruins. The fact that this mindset sometimes bled over into his personal behavior made Loki wonder just how hard it was to conceal everything about being a vigilante superhero for a mortal man. For him it merely required planning and a mildly clever execution as he had done. But for Bruce Wayne, and perhaps all men like him, it was a much more intricate and taxing endeavor.

One that, he then supposed, could not be concealed forever without grains of truth coming out of the woodwork to sully the image.

“You must realize, though,” Bruce continued after a moment, in which it seemed both he and Loki had lost themselves to their thoughts, “that if I didn’t scrutinize you even just a bit, you wouldn’t be clothed right now.” That managed to catch the God off-guard enough to genuinely bring him back into the conversation, though a bit brutally if he were to be asked.

He only smirked a bit, ignoring the little voice that noted the ways in which that transition could have been done more artistically. “Is that so problematic a concept?” he demurred.

Now _that_ was at least certainly a bit more artsy about it. “Certainly not for me,” Bruce replied, seeming to take enjoyment out of that particular flick of Loki’s sharp tongue almost as much as Loki did. “But as we have established already, I have some nugatory issues about sharing.”

“Nugatory?” a new voice interrupted. “I would opt for “colossal” as a more fitting adjective for _that_ particular aspect of your positively stunning personality, Bruce.”

The young man who stood before them now was another of Bruce’s interns, markedly. He, however, carried himself far differently than the others. Or, at least from Loki’s direct experience, the first. Loki, all other knowledge of him aside, liked the young man almost immediately: he reminded him strikingly of a far-gone version of himself. That Loki had long since died, but many of his un-aged characteristics showed still in this young mortal before him:

The stiff, coiled posture of someone prepared to be struck, but equally prepared to strike back. The glinting eye of an observant intellectual, but the slow underlying smolder of reserved judgment in favor of further investigation. The faint down-turn of a mouth not prone to smiling. The hard set of defiant shoulders, emanating a constant silent castigation of the common society’s lax and absorbing posture.

“Jason Todd,” the young man provided, “you must be the one and only Norman Danvers: Charmer-of-Waynes and Castrator-of-Dicks.”

Completely incapable of stifling all of his laughter at the young man’s description, even as Bruce gave his employee a scandalized glare, Loki opted to laugh a bit more politely behind the protection of his hand. After he had gotten himself under control, he offered his hand first this time, as he was more than pleased enough with the boy’s competency to be willing to initiate. The winning side in chess was not always the one that moved first, but it was always a preferable advantage to press if it could be manipulated correctly.

“I’m honored, Mr. Todd,” he said as the boy honored his offer smoothly. “Though I hope my use to this company, and thereby your personal investments in it, is to consist of more than distraction and intimidation itineraries.” A small smirk teased at his lips as he paused, and the boy looked at him bravely the entire way through. “To my knowledge of your tactical prowess, that job seems to be notably yours.”

Jason smirked back, taking his own moment of pause to look him up and down in a way totally unlike the first intern had done. Norman Danvers, judging by the sharp approval in Jason’s very posture, had at least proven himself interesting with that first move-and-response sequence. The game, just as obviously, was far from set and that pleased Loki greatly. Jason might be able to provide at least an engaging challenge.

“What _are_ you going to do next, Norman?” Bruce said teasingly, though his intrigue seemed to be increasing the more Loki’s knowledge base stretched its long dancing legs. Loki preferred Bruce when he was intrigued: it meant at least that he was not being entirely predictable. Though to men of this age being predictable was sometimes an asset and a point of comfort, for Loki it was a risk. What it meant when Bruce was intrigued by that rather than frustrated was that he understood the need for fluidity. Loki just wondered how well Bruce understood fluidity, and how the man would respond if all manners of contingency plans went to waste.

In that instance, his true character would be tested.

“Shall I pull a rabbit out of my suit?” he proposed, looking down at the trimly-lined garment set he was clad in simply for emphasis. He was also, semi-truthfully, half expecting to find a utility belt tucked away somewhere that he hadn’t noticed at first glance. “Seeing as they are not my clothes, I am still under bewitching of the belief that they may have the ability in some kind of utility pocket that I have yet to find. By the way, how were you able to know what size I was?” Bruce looked at him, seemingly a bit dazed by the speed and intricacy that Loki spoke with. He would have to get used to it; Loki was far too old to be being taught too many new tricks, especially not when this one in particular was one of his few ‘good’ trademarks. “This suit you’ve monkeyed me up in: it’s perfectly tailored,” he elaborated as the man still seemed to be a bit too lost to catch up.

A warm, albeit thin smile graced the billionaire’s face then. “I sized you up the moment we met.”

At that Jason actually had the gall to openly groan, earning a brief laugh from both of the adults before he could even get out a snide comment. “You two are flirting like a pair of horny college students at their first kegger,” he chided, still rolling his eyes like a bored elder sibling. “At least try to show some professionalism.”

“So you want to flirt like professionals?” Loki asked through light laugh.

Bruce, mouth open to speak just before Loki interrupted, took a moment to let out a single laugh. “That’s one of the points of this Jason. This gala is about you and the other interns: not me.” Bruce looked then to Loki, and he preened under the gaze a bit for the appearance with his two-person audience. “So, for tonight, I don’t need to act like the professional. If anything, my public behavior, such as I’ve been displaying tonight and attempt to display as often as I can, will assist in reflecting better on you in comparison to the schmuck of a trust-fund-baby that the actual company heir is.”

“Poor baby,” Loki drawled unsympathetically.

“Be nice,” Bruce responded, chuckling again.

“No.”

Both of the Wayne Enterprises representatives present looked at him, their gazes showing that they were equally confused and astounded by his answer. A small part of Loki’s mind grinned wildly at the question of just how often someone had the guts and the wherewithal to say “No” to Bruce Wayne. He also wondered just as much how often said people got away with it, and decided that he would bet greatly in his favor that he was one of the few that ever had or ever would.

“More specifically,” he added calmly, though there was no apology in his tone, “make me.”

Jason smiled first, catching onto the rabble-rousing intent underneath the softly-intoned words before Bruce did. “You still haven’t gotten him tamed yet, have you?” If anything, Jason sounded approving of the idea that Loki, in spite of his someone swift and expansive exposure to Bruce Wayne and his many echelons of life, had not been totally wooed or inundated. Loki got the feeling that Jason was of a similar make, and that though he was willing to fight the good fight for truth and justice, he was not above being smart, practical, and maybe the slightest bit rough about it.

Loki folded his fingers together around the glass of his champagne, raising his brows and shrugging dismissively. “I would _love_ to see him try.” Then again, teasing Bruce Wayne’s ego was also one of his predominant modus operandi, so he would chase after that end as often as he could manage.

When he looked back to Bruce, he found the other man smiling, but in a veiled way that made Loki thankful he had a photographic memory: he would certainly have to dissect the intricate little pieces of that smile later on when he had the time. Apparently, or even discernibly, the Batman seemed aware that Loki was purposefully trying to goad little parts of his ego. He wasn’t rising to the bait, but that, even for him apparently, made the game itself no less amusing or engaging.

“That will not be happening any time soon,” Bruce assured, looking to Jason rather than at Loki as he spoke. “Not until I reign in my own interns,” he added snidely.

“Well, then I should be safe for the rest of eternity,” Loki quipped, and Jason chuckled with him as Bruce scowled at the prospect of them both ganging up on him. Loki would have had more sympathy for him if he weren’t having such a good time with the taunting experience. He had almost forgotten how wildly he missed it with all of the boring professional faces he’d had to put on to keep his head on his shoulders.

For a fleeting moment he had a nostalgic longing for Thor’s company of all things, but buried it under busier thoughts. If he went off on that train of thought, it would wash him under the bitterness sitting in the back of his own heart. And though that bitterness was an inherent part of his thought process and personality, he did recognize it inarguably as a paralytic. At that point in his new life, he could not afford to be paralyzed by that bitterness, no matter how tempting it was to milk it into wrath. In a utilitarian sense, however, at this point he had no need to focus on the bitterness in order to milk wrath out of it.

He thought grimly that he also did not have the strength to do so at the moment. His wound was healing quickly, but it had still taken much longer than he’d anticipated or wanted. His former Godly health was waning slowly, taxed more and more by the subtle stresses that his new life was putting him through. That wrath, and the power it would take, would have to be reserved for something truly dire or necessary.

And a mere lonely whim was not dire, nor was it necessary, so Loki pushed it back out of the forefront of his thoughts. But he let go of it gently in the back of his mind: the touch of a genuine acknowledged sentiment gentle rather than the cruel denial of something perceived unwanted within the confines of the psyche.

“So,” he said after his little internal sojourn, doing his best to get out of his own head for at least a moment, “how many more of your interns do I have to scare off before this evening can be considered a success on my part?”

The smile that Bruce gave him indicated that there was at least one thing that Loki had not yet considered about the evening, and this very thing Bruce Wayne himself was very aware of and was about three seconds away from exploiting.

“The look on your face obviously says otherwise to my initial assessment.” He furrowed his brows at the heir next to him, whose hand, he again realized belatedly, was still solidly placed on his back. Really, he should have been more observant about these things. But to his mind it seemed so natural as to not be worthy of note; even if physical contact to him was not the most common or smiled-upon occurrence.

“Did you honestly think that all you had to do tonight was scare the Armani off of a few interns?” his host asked, his tone slow and drawn out in far too much of its own amusement. Loki supposed that it was fair that he be intrigued in return, regardless of how flummoxed he was getting at the moment.

“If it’s any defense,” Jason added in, sounding as equally confused as Loki felt, “I sure as hell thought that.”

Loki hummed, and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for the instigator of their change of plans to come forward and speak again, as obviously the present company had no means of guessing what was on his mercurial mind. Loki could have guessed until he was blue in the face (which admittedly was a far less humorous turn of phrase in reference to his particular brand of fucked up physiology) trying to pick Bruce Wayne’s brains, and could probably have succeeded. But half of the game with Bruce was the touch and go: the push and pull that had them dancing such a waltz the complexity of which Loki had never seen in any mortal before.

Then he understood, and smiled a bit brightly even by his own low standards.

At the rising of Loki’s smile, Jason seemed even more frustrated at being left out of a completely silent and one-sided conversation. He was trailing swiftly behind on the uptake, Loki was sure: not but a few moments away from realizing what was meant to be going on. But unfortunately for the young intern Loki, and Norman Danvers in turn, was not always a patient and generous person. So rather than wait around for the young man to gather himself, as he was sure he would have liked to, he was going to explain the answer and save himself a vast amount of time.

This next act, after all, was something that he did have a concerted amount of interest in engaging in, that intrigue increased tenfold by the wholly subtle manner in which it had been proposed and resolved. Perhaps Bruce had not been entirely artistic in his proposals earlier, but he was more than certainly making up for it now.

“If you had wanted to dance, Mr. Wayne,” he murmured through his smile, which he was quite sure had more teeth showing in it than was necessary or normal, “you could merely have asked.”

A sharp glint of something primal passed through in a split second in Bruce’s eyes, but it was quickly tamed and set into proper high-society garb as a pleased glow took over instead. “That seems a bit boring for the likes of you Norman. Where’s the fun in telling you everything when you’re so good at figuring it out yourself?”

Instead of dignifying that with a verbal response, Loki merely shrugged one narrow shoulder, leaning subtly back into the hand still resting on him. Body language, he had learned, was equally as powerful an indicator as any. His movement made that little primal flash light in Bruce’s eyes again, and the other man’s calloused hand moved in a gentle brushing circle against his back.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Jason said after a moment, his face stunned as he looked between the two adults and floundered to understand the logistics of just _how_ Norman Danvers had come to that conclusion when absolutely no reference to it had ever been made in spoken conversation. After a moment of catching up, and of respectfully observing the body language of the two adults, he said with a great amount of conviction, “Cassie is going to _adore_ you.”

His soon-to-be-dance-partner stood considering for a moment, a slow smile coming over his face as Loki was left waiting to try and figure out what reference he had missed. So far as he knew there was no considerable figure within Wayne Enterprises named Cassie, although he did vaguely recall an assistant of the tower they were now in named Cassandra. He couldn’t bring to mind her face at that moment, not when Bruce was looking at him with a nebulously satisfied look on his face. “Yes, I think that she will,” he conceded, looking to Jason with an almost comical amount of seriousness. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to show this handsome man to a dance before your gala comes to a complete close. I’m afraid if we stand here and do any more talking we’ll end up halfway down each other’s throats before anyone, especially Tim, could stop us.”

“I don’t think Tim would want you to. He would probably find Alfred and a camera and have a hell of a time,” Jason replied nodding towards the cleared area on the other side of the ballroom where some of the less talkative crowd had paired off to dance in slow sweeping circles. “Go on, have your dance. I’m sure that Tim will be halfway down your throat by the end of the night if you don’t. Besides, he’ll be here in the morning: Norman can meet him then. I promise he won’t mind.”

“Send my thanks to him: I look forward to meeting him tomorrow then. Though I think that it should be clarified, before we engage in this dance,” Loki said boredly, somehow still catching the attention of Jason even as he made to step away back into the crowd, “that I am never one to do _anything_ by halves.”

The smirk on Bruce’s face was almost strikingly mirrored on Jason’s. “Duly noted,” they said in tandem, before parting ways. Jason headed back towards where Dick was waiting in the crowd looking jealous and pouting, and Bruce towards the polished dance floor, Loki gently towed alongside him.

Loki’s only vague thought at that point was whether or not he would remember how to dance; or at least re-dredge-up the steps of the various Midgard dances he had researched on an idle whim one Sunday afternoon. He could not, after all, afford to make a fool of himself. Not the least of such reasons being that the one and only Bruce Wayne was his dance partner, and he had no desire to step on said man’s toes.

Or, more likely in the eyes of the public, that it was the one and questionably striking Norman Danvers, rising star info broker, that was dancing with Bruce Wayne at his interns’ premiere gala. He wondered curiously, as they fell into step with each other, Bruce taking the lead without question, how the media storm would season that in the morning’s headlines. It might not be front-page news, but it would certainly be news to someone. Bruce Wayne’s news followers, though few and selective, would certainly pick up on it.

Even as they danced, Loki pondered over the idea of just whose attention he could catch with that even minimal headline. One name in particular that flitted to the top of his mind he kept tacked there, held in the hopes of getting into contact with said person the next day. She had been a reliable and useful resource to him on more than one occasion, and would hopefully be so again. Even if she was not technically one of the crème de la crème of Gotham’s wealthiest, her wealth of tenacity, resourcefulness, and knowledge far outshone the need for an overly-expensive wardrobe.

And, if anyone was going to be able to tell him all of the dirty ups and downs of his reputation post morning’s print, it would certainly be her. Their camaraderie was established on more than just rumor, after all. There was a much more charming, feline approach to their ‘friendship’, if it could be called that at all considering cats barely made friends at all. But perhaps in that sense the term was even more accurate: cats didn’t make friends with anything, rather, they tolerated the existence of other things on a gradient scale of various degrees. Thankfully their tolerance of each other did merit itself to the level of ‘friendship’ cats were capable of.

As soon as he was sure that she would not leave his mind before tomorrow morning, he turned back to his task at hand, satisfied in appreciating a dance that did not involve a boisterous amount of movement, the sugary stick of mead stains, and enough hormones to get _thoughts_ impregnated with the amount of sexual intent in the room. Though, in the air caught between the two of them as they danced was not completely virgin of that same intent. It was merely being cautious, biding its time, and building a tempered anticipation for the inevitable.

As with most other things in Earth’s High Society, as Loki had learned, though the fundamentals were still the same, the execution was far more refined. More neatly combed back, and more tactfully designed, those same fundaments which repelled him in Asgard were here morphed into an alluring evening. One whose ends he did not, for once, dread.

As he and Bruce shared a smile, he noted with an increasing amount of pleasure that he was actually anticipating the end of the gala. Not only for what lay immediately after it, but also for what lay far beyond it, in the scope that only he could fathom and understand. At least his company, though not to the level he himself was, was competent enough to grasp some of Loki’s own mercurial fundaments. And that, in whatever form, he did not mind.

ǁ _harmr meðal stafkarlar_ ǁ 

Loki was actually pleased to have managed to sleep in the following morning, as opposed to his usual feeling of discontent at the grogginess he usually woke up with. The events of the evening before, though not overly taxing to him, had given him more than enough incentive to sleep in until at least six-thirty in the morning. He was unsurprised to find that Bruce did not sleep with him: no matter what night he always had other things to be doing. Loki understood that, appreciated the fact that he was at least still clad in pyjama bottoms, and made to rummage around for a shirt without a single thought of malcontent about him.

There was little malcontent that could be had with the overpowering smell of coffee permeating the room, and Bruce’s promise of allowing Loki to be out and about the next day. Now today, that promise would finally hold true. Loki was grateful, and had expressed such gratitude last night. The thanks established the night before left him completely free now that the time was at his hands, and he intended to utilize it.

His stomach gave a miserable growl, and he decided that a cup of the coffee he was smelling and at least a bite of breakfast were things to be accomplished first before he bathed and made to sort out his day. He was also not so cruel as to assume that everyone else in Gotham was as bright-eyed and day-ready as he was at this time in the morning. The people that he associated with were, but they compared to most others were without argument anomalies. But Loki liked anomalies, so that was a negligible problem.

It was only as Loki wandered out of the master suite and into the main foyer of the penthouse that he realized the shirt he had scrubbed up from underneath the bed was the undershirt that Bruce had been wearing beneath his dress shirt last night. His resolve to go back and try to find another one was completely outshone by the desire to get to the kitchen.

Or, at least, as he wandered out into the main hall to realize that he had next to no idea how to navigate the penthouse, _find_ the kitchen. He would have been more perturbed were he not a considerably intellectual person, and made the observation very swiftly that there were voices coming from a small doorway on the other side of the main hall that he had somehow managed to stumble into. The main wait staff was not up yet, nor would they be for a considerable amount of time considering they were there probably late into the evening cleaning up after the mess of the party. The floors had looked beautifully waxed for how many people had been shuffling around on them.

His assessment of the far doorway was proven correct as he drew nearer and recognized the voices speaking. He knew that those within the room would not judge his state of appearance, so he walked in without reserve as he stifled a small yawn behind his hand.

Only, he realized, to come in on one of the most amusing comments he had yet heard since his time on Earth.

“I thought that Alfred only got out the good espresso when Bruce got laid,” one of the interns was saying as he lay draped over the counter of the kitchen’s island. Loki believed this one to be the Tim Drake that he had been slated to meet that morning. Though, he had been assuming that it would have been under more official and better-dressed circumstances. He was at least relieved to note that all three of the interns who were assembled in the kitchen along with the butler were still in their own sleep clothes.

Upon hearing the comment, Loki paused, taking the time to cross his arms over his chest and lean against the doorway. He cocked his head to one side, smirking as he waited for the young men to take notice of his presence. His timing, as always, was highly commendable.

Alfred, whom Loki believed to have seen him wandering in from the hall before he had ever gotten to the doorway, took pity on the sleepy young men assembled at his counter and addressed Loki before their little discussion could go any further and invoke more punishment from him. “Good morning Mister Danvers,” he said, sounding chipper and just the slightest bit amused as the three young men that had been slouching almost on top of each other snapped to attention, their backs straight and their eyes wide as they finally noticed the presence of the other guest in the house. “I hope you rested well.”

“Indeed I did, Master Pennyworth,” he responded smoothly, striding in and taking his own seat at the counter, folding his hands together and keeping sure to emphasize how natural and un-inhibited his posture and stances were. He couldn’t have these boys thinking that he was _sore_ from anything when for now there was no reason for him to be so. Though, and this Loki was almost positive of, that day would not be too terribly far off in his future. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

The three interns mumbled at him, all with varying expressions of welcome. Dick, his hair in a positive mess, seemed a bit red about the ears, and Loki could only gather that he had been more than passively involved in Tim’s discussion. Jason seemed completely innocent of the matter or was at least doing his best to make himself look innocent of the matter, even when the youngest intern next to him looked like he was more than ready and willing to curl in on himself and just walk away.

“Would you like anything in your coffee Mr. Danvers?” Alfred offered, and from the smell of it as it wafted over Loki knew that the assessment of good espresso had been accurate. Even if it was just an Americano, there was no way he was going to turn it down.

Taking a moment to consider what would likely be readily available in a house like this, he settled on something generally simple. “I wouldn’t mind some Baileys if you’ve got any lying around,” he admitted, garnering for himself a small bashful smile. Usually he was not one to have alcohol in the morning, but true Irish Cream in coffee was something he would be willing to splurge on whenever he got the opportunity.

“Right away sir,” the butler replied, setting about to making the drink and handing it over completed before Loki had even gotten the chance to redirect his attention. Loki took it with a thankful nod, setting his hands around them in an attempt to warm them. He always had a strange chill in his hands these days, but thankfully at least Bruce seemed not to have minded.

Turning his attention back to the interns, Loki looked to the youngest. “You must be Tim Drake,” Loki said, keeping his tone light and his expression unassuming. If anything his nonchalance would keep the two boys whom he had met on edge, seeing as they were more than well aware of how sharp he could be. He offered a hand to the young man, gratified when Tim shook it with a bashful smile. “My apologies for not being able to meet you last night. I assure that it was not because I was not interested.”

Tim just shook his head, shrugging. “That’s alright, Mr. Danvers, I understand. Besides: Bruce made it very clear to me this morning that there was essentially nothing that I could have done that would have changed the way your company choices panned out last night. I’m just glad I have the opportunity now.”

Loki snorted, smirking just the slightest bit. “Well, at least that’s established. Today I would like to extend a genuine apology for that, however. Bruce and I did have a generously good time last night at your event, and I would like to commend you on the successful execution of it. He does not, however, own me or my time. His inherited company now has rights to that, and as an executive intern you have the authority to come ask anything of my time and resources whenever you please, regardless of whose company I am in or what I am otherwise doing. It is what you will be paying me for. That does, of course, go for all of you.”

All three of the young businessmen smiled at him at that, and even Alfred, with his back turned to them as he attended to some scrambled eggs, seemed to approve.

After taking a sip of his own coffee, which Loki could faintly smell had at least one small dash of sugar in it, Tim spoke. “That will be good to keep in mind,” he said, “considering we live just downstairs. I don’t know how long you’ll be staying here exactly, but the likely thing is that as soon as it’s arranged you’ll move downstairs with us into the Robin’s Nest. It’ll be very convenient to have access to you from there.”

He tilted his head to one side, poring over data and facts in his head as he pondered over the younger man’s use of the term in reference to the level of apartments owned by Bruce just beneath his own penthouse. He knew that it was part of these interns’ stipend to have their housing be provided for in such a manner, and not simply out of the kindness in the heart of Bruce Wayne. Having _them_ at his beck and call was equally useful to him than it was having Loki at their disposal. He had not, under any provision however, heard of that floor by the name Tim had called it.

“The Robin’s Nest?” he asked, wondering if there were some manner of selective code used only in certain companies.

“It’s what the boy’s have taken to calling themselves,” Alfred explained over his shoulder. “Thus their apartments have become something equally clever."

Loki chuckled deeply. “So I see,” he said, looking at the three-man line-up with a bit more of a calculating eye. “So are the Robins going to be an aside to the Caped Crusader one day?” He smiled genially at the idea, even if the thought of men so young doing work so dangerous made him inexplicably uneasy in regards to their safety. They weren’t even his children, for heaven’s sake, but that feeling was seemingly not to be brushed under the rug. “Or are you strict business figureheads only?”

“Wouldn’t call us figureheads so much as placeholders,” Tim explained, very serious for one so young. “Bruce is an heir to the company and can therefore make executive decisions about major goings on. But he needs more than just Lucius as CEO to keep the ship running tight. The more penetration he has on the Board, the better of all off us will be. Especially _if_ at some point we do get involved in… all of that, it would be much less of a problem should one of us be out doing things and “unavailable” when there are still two others do keep things running smoothly.”

He nodded his head in approval, his eye’s half lidded as he pondered the matter over. Their presence, and their specifically chosen prowess in various areas made the possibility of them joining Bruce’s extracurricular goings on a likelihood impossible to ignore. It would be a dangerous line to walk: one that could teeter to either the side of the lawful or the side of the unlawful at any moment. Their need for advisors and information was paramount: now and into the future. That made him not only a temporary investment, but likely a long-term investment.

“I don’t suppose making plans for a retirement fund would be entirely out of the question then,” he muttered abstractly, thrumming his fingers on the side of his mug. “Seeing as you all intend to make use of me for as long as is applicable, I might as well get on board and make some provisions for the long run, eh?” He looked up as his eyes and thoughts cleared, barely aware that he had even been speaking.

“I keep forgetting,” Jason admitted with a shake of his head, “that you’re technically our _employee_. It feels so strange to think about it, even though we technically employ hundreds of other people older and more experienced than we are.” The bright-eyed youth looked to him with a look of discernment so clear that it probably would have frightened many others if they had been subject to it. “To me you just feel kind of… ancient.”

The other boys guffawed at his choice of words, but he batted away their comments with a wave of his hand. “Not like that,” he barked in defense. “I just mean that you just kind of… _feel_ old and wise, you know? Not that you’re not young and handsome or anything, just that there are some people who feel like that.”

“Alfred, for example,” Dick supplied teasingly. “He’s been old for the past two-hundred years.”

The butler’s expression remained neutral as he handed heartily-portioned dishes out to Tim and Jason, holding back Dick’s for a moment to spoon some of his portion specifically off onto a smaller plate which he then handed to Loki. The information broker chuckled, taking it thankfully as he watched the scene unfold. “Watch your manners, Master Grayson,” the Englishman warned, his tone equally teasing but successful in relaying a very serious threat nonetheless. “There’s a new guest in the house who would be happy to help me teach you a few if you don’t catch on quick enough.”

Dick snorted, reaching out to snatch the plate from Alfred’s hand, which effort the older man thwarted by moving it just out of reach. “Him?” the eldest intern said with a nod towards the spot on the counter where Loki was happily dining on his pilfered share. “He’s house-ridden. He can’t help you much on that front, dear old Alfred, save for maybe in words.”

“Actually,” Loki corrected between a politely small mouthful of egg, “I am house-ridden, as you say, no longer. I have some plans that I have to attend to, and which have been approved by both Bruce and Mr. Fox.”

At that all three of the interns looked at him in shock, each blubbering their own nonsensical denials of that fact before one of them actually voiced a complete thought.

“But you’re healing from a poisoning, a beating, and a severe stab wound,” Dick said, his voice slightly shrill. “That happened, if you forgot, _two_ days ago.”

“Yes, I know,” he replied lightly. “Would you like to see the scar? Alfred can even vouch for the fact that it’s healed to the point that it’s no longer a danger if I do menial tasks such as standing and walking.”

Two of the boys responded “no” in unison, while Jason responded with a jubilant “yes” through a mouthful of eggs. The one that responded positively had at least caught onto the idea that Loki wouldn’t string them up by their tendons for every misplaced word. He would make them aware of every misplaced word as often as he damn well pleased, but he would not be so anal about it as to be completely unapproachable.

Obligingly, Loki lifted up the bottom hem of his pilfered shirt, hiking it up over the newly healed skin. The scar was indeed just that, if only the slightest bit still pinked from the constant blood flow of the healing tissues. It looked far improved to what it had even when he had gone to bed the night before.

Despite the initial denial of interest from Dick and Tim, all three of them were now leaning over the counter to get a better look as if to make one-hundred-percent sure that it was not some manner of cosmetic illusion. Which, in Loki’s normal habit, was not entirely out of the question, but in his current state was a risk he would not think to take.

“You can’t be human,” Tim proclaimed, though he had a slightly disappointing amount of disbelief in his tone. Loki had actually hoped for a fleeting moment that the detective-in-training had figured it out. He couldn’t be faulted for not thinking it entirely possible: most of them had not yet run into things beyond the reckoning of mortal science, regardless of how often they would come upon it in the future. “That shouldn’t be physically possible. There has to be some kind of physiological anomaly.”

“Don’t get yourself too excited,” Loki said, letting the shirt settle back down over his stomach as he went back to the last few bites of his breakfast. “I’m not sure that I would quite have the manner of answers that would be most preferable to you, though I am sure that Lucius Fox would be more than happy to discuss the manner of my anomalous being to you.”

After clearing the last bits of his small portion away, he handed the plate to Alfred, just barely before the man could snatch it up himself. He took his mug of coffee with him, not minding that it had not necessarily remained scalding hot throughout their discussion. The taste would not be sullied, regardless of its temperature. As he stood and made to go, he looked back to the butler for a moment.

“Mr. Pennyworth, as I understand it most of my possessions were burned in the arson that took my apartment,” he said. “And though I do appreciate the finery that was acquired for last night, I may also be in need of some more domestic clothing. Is there any portion of Mr. Wayne’s closet that I might borrow from less intrusively than others until I may go out and re-acquire some semblance of my wardrobe?”

“Ah,” the servant said, seeming thankful that the topic had been brought back to his attention. “That actually has been somewhat cared for Mr. Danvers. Master Wayne and I did take care of some clothing provisions for you until you can go out and shop for yourself a bit. If you’re headed to the shower then you can go on ahead: I will be in in just a moment with some clothes for you as soon as I’ve finished in here.”

“What’s your big hurry?” Dick asked.

The looks on the other two interns’ faces showed that they were equally curious where Loki intended to go with his new found mobility. Loki shrugged. “I’m in no particular hurry, but you must understand that I have to get back to work at some point. And I may as well wean myself back onto the streams of information you’re paying me to maintain one small bit at a time.” He smiled. “So, thankfully, most of my day will technically be spent at work.”

Dick seemed to not be quite as settled with his answer as some of the others were. “But you are hired out to us exclusively now,” he noted. “I understand that you need to close up contracts and cases with other clients, but you make it sound like you’re going out and getting new ones.”

“Oh no, Mr. Grayson, I’m not out to acquire new customers,” he assured as he turned to make his way back to the master suite, and the master bath attached to it. “I am out to acquire new _information_. And I cannot do that solely from the confined safety of my new office, if you understand my meaning.”

The small chatter that followed him out of the room he managed to ignore, as it would continue on without him regardless of whether or not it revolved around him. The breakfast and the interlude had been a pleasant one, but as he snatched a glance at the clock in the hall, which now read half past seven, he knew that he needed to get out and about before everyone else got to moving without him.

He retrieved his phone, one of the few items of his own which had persevered, sent a text before he went to bathe, and finished his coffee after his shower as he waited for a response. As soon as he got one, he was up and headed out, slinging a fine coat which Alfred had set out for him over his shoulders as he made his way to the elevator that would take him back down to earth where the actual people of Gotham lived.

Alfred was waiting for him in front of the lift. “Before you leave, Mr. Danvers, Master Bruce asked me to give you some things.” The butler produced a wallet, which as Loki flipped it open and looked through its contents saw that it contained a newly issued render of his driver’s license, a Wayne Enterprises employee card, a key card that gave him access to the tower penthouse, and two crisp new credit cards with his false name pressed into them. When he looked back to Alfred the man still seemed to have one more item to produce, which sat small and unassuming in his hand as he waited for Loki to take it.

The small metal item was light in his fingers as he took it, but it had the look about it and the thrumming feel of something electronic. He turned it over, glancing at it from as many angles as he could glean. “I assume,” he said after a moment’s observation, “that this is some kind of distress beacon, activated by the small stun gun mechanism inside.”

The door opened behind Alfred and the butler stepped aside to let his guest through to the small enclosed chamber. “Very good, Mr. Danvers,” he conceded. “Do give us a call if you need anything, on the phone or on that little gizmo of yours. And, if you remember, do give me a call whenever you might know when you’ll be back for dinner. I’d hate to give the impression of being a bad host.”

He chuckled as he strode past, tucking his new wallet and defensive item into the inner pocket of his coat. “I do believe that, no matter how many dinners I might miss, Alfred, that it would be impossible for me to have that impression.”

“Very good, sir,” the Pennyworth said as the doors of the lift began to close. “We shall see you this evening then.”

“Oh you’ll see me much sooner than that,” Loki said to himself, regardless of the doors having closed before him, cutting him off from he who would have been addressed by the statement. “You people all assume that I’m going to go slinking off into the underground and won’t resurface until some ungodly hour of the night, when all I’m really doing is going around the corner for some tea.”

 _Tisane_ was actually barely even a block away, though at points the trek to it from the penthouse’s tower could be somewhat dangerous due to traffic and the city’s general dislike of pedestrians. This morning it was unusually light for Loki’s maiden voyage back out into the world, and for that he was thankful. He really did not favor the idea of having to manage any acrobatic feats to get out of harm’s way so early in the morning.

Naturally, he arrived before his company did, and took the time to order a cup of dragonwell green tea and a two-set of miniature éclairs. He had little interest in eating them himself, but he would drink his tea and have a presentable apology ready on the table for when his company arrived. He owed her one anyway: they’d initially had this breakfast planned for nearly two days ago. But, as it was, two mornings ago he was still in the fevered throes of almost-dying, and had thus been unable to meet at their arranged time.

Thankfully when she arrived and saw him sitting at their usual table, she seemed more relieved than angry that he was there. He stood up like a gentleman, showed her to her seat, and then reseated himself with a long-fingered hand draped over his cup.

“So, you’re still alive and kicking,” she drawled, pulling a pair of long black gloves from her hands. She leaned back, eyeing the éclairs appreciatively in spite of the somewhat terse tone of voice she used. The look she favored him with when she looked up from his offered confections was, however, much softer. “I’m glad,” she said honestly.

Tilting his head, he looked at her curiously for a moment. “You were worried about me,” he stated, because there was no reason to question the existence of something that was obvious. There was, however, the query of the nature of its existence. “Why?”

She smiled at that, even if it was a bit of a harsh thing on such a fair face as hers. “I may not be your friend, Norman,” she conceded, “but I do respect you, and I would be more than a bit put out if you were torn from Gotham completely. Ever since you turned up my half of town has gotten so much more interesting.” She scowled for a fleeting moment; and he could have sworn he saw the glint of her fags as she showed her distaste. “And not in the way that all those thugs seem to want to make it.”

He nodded in agreement. “Yes, I know,” he said, his voice low for a moment as she ordered her own fare. “I had a rather nasty run in with one of those thugs the other night, which is why I so rudely missed our meeting.”

“I heard,” she said, one eyebrow raised as she took a mini-éclair. “Or at least, I saw. I realize that I’m one of the few people that knew where you lived, and so it wasn’t much of a problem for the fire to make even a second of the news: it wouldn't have been traced back to you anyway. But I was worried that they’d… well, you know. Gotten you.” Her keen eyes looked at him for a long moment as she chewed her pastry. “Who was it? Do you know?”

He let out a stiff little laugh. “Oh I know who it was,” he said. “Indeed it would be hard not to when he might as well have tattooed his calling card on my mind for the rest of eternity.” Upon her beseeching look, he deigned to explain. “The Joker abducted me after a dinner that I had that evening. Strangely, back to my own apartment where he caused the fuss such as you saw.”

Her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Jesus Christ,” she whispered. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

“In more ways than you know,” he supplied, taking a calming sip of his tea. “Though I think luck had little to do with it. I’m under the distinct impression, from first-hand exposure, that it was a very methodically planned endeavor.”

“I was worried about that,” she said, before her eyes narrowed slyly. “But, from what I read in Gotham’s little tabloids this morning, that plan has worked out rather well for you, hasn’t it?”

“Ah,” he said. “And there is where our meeting today comes into play. I had figured that you would know better than I and sooner than I what has been implied about this new business juncture between Bruce Wayne and myself.” Surprisingly, in spite of Loki’s knowledge that Bruce and she were not unfamiliar, her smile was genuinely interested and amused rather than suspicious and biting as he had thought it could potentially be. “Though it was not originally my plan to get stabbed, the repercussions of said stabbing have turned out to be a rather bolstering event for my career.”

She folded her hands in her lap, leaving the second of the two mini-éclairs between them as she waited for her own fare. “But now you want to know how what’s being perceived so you can twist it to your advantage too.” She paused for a moment, her eyes widening as she looked him up and down as far as she was able with the table between them. “You got stabbed?” she asked incredulously.

“Indeed.”

“You’re looking mighty perky for someone who got stabbed a couple of days ago,” she commented as her pot of tea arrived. Apparently she intended to be there for quite a while, so while he had the chance Loki followed suit and ordered a pot of tea of his own.

“It’s all in the complexion, I assure,” he replied as he finished up the remainder of his cup and settled back to wait for his pot to arrive.

She rolled her eyes at him. “And you’ve still somehow made that into an advantage. Or, at least, looking at the photos from this morning’s tabloids, you’ve done a damn good job of working it into an advantage.”

He smiled demurely. “You always were quick on the uptake.”

“Housecats playing with tigers here, Norman,” she said, serious in spite of his compliment. “Without you, or at least,” she paused only for a second, taking a furtive glance around to make sure that no one was around or approaching that could listen to her next words, “without _Shere Khan_ I would never have gotten to where I am today. All I had was an idea before you swept in.” Her tone returned to normal then, if only slightly tinged with a dutiful admiration for the work he had done for her. “But I get the feeling that you do that for a lot of people, not just me.”

“Don’t belittle yourself,” he advised, turning his cup to see the daintily painted dragons curling around the sides. “I’m selective about all of my clients and just how much I choose to do for them not based on pay. That I continue to hold a professional relationship with you and have made no indications of stopping should be an indicator that I believe your… _ideas_ to be a worthwhile investment of time.” He shrugged idly, looking back to her. “That you benefit me in return seems only to sweeten the deal, be me a tiger or a man.”

“Well you’re more than just a man,” she said, pouring a top-up into her half drained cup. A fresh curl of the smell of her Darjeeling tea wafted over to him. “And Bruce Wayne certainly knows that, if his statements are any indicator.” He waited for her to finish pouring, and for her to continue, for he certainly had not the slightest idea what statements in particular she was talking about. She finally looked up and noted his expectancy, and continued. “In response to the rather mild media-shower regarding the two of you that came about this morning, he released some very strong and defensive statements about the state of your character. And, if it’s any comfort, about your status and involvement with Wayne Enterprises being strictly professional.”

Loki hummed thoughtfully at that, taking gentle hold of his newly delivered pot of tea and pouring himself a fresh draught. “That was certainly kind of him,” he murmured.

“You wouldn’t have minded the slander, would you?” He could hear the smile in her voice. “That’s still part of your plan, isn’t it?”

“My plans are many and changing,” he stated. “The factor of public slander being involved in our relationship, whatever form of professional or personal it may be, is one that I have considered and anticipated. The fact that it has been stayed for the time being is of no bother to me.” He took a breath and tapped a finger on the saucer beneath his cup. “What I am bothered by is _how_ these events were ignited and why. And seeing as I no longer have quite the natural ear that I once had down in the dark parts of Gotham, I will be needing someone to be keeping an eye on everything for me.”

The smile that graced her face as she brushed a few stray auburn strands out of her face was as stunning as it had been the night of her first successful robbery. “I’m often better at making away with actual jewels, Norman, but I suppose that information too can be of beauty and worth. I will be more than happy to keep a cat’s eye out for any shiny trinket that may catch my eye.”

A cloud passed over her eyes, and she silenced as the thoughts followed. Loki watched go them one by one across her face, but did not try to discern what they were until they passed from her lips.

“Now that I think about it,” she said, her voice far away as her fingers absently stroked the side of her cup, “there is one gem that you might be interested in. It’s not definite, and I don’t know if it’s… well, accurate, but there have been rumors. Very quiet ones: small ones deep down, but they’re all similar and they’re spreading fast.” Worry, a surprising emotion for her, was in her eyes when she looked up at him. “Something is coming, Norman.”

He reached across the table, taking her pot of tea in hand and topping up her cup again. “We have all the time in the world, love.” Setting her pot down, he leaned his elbows onto the table, clasping his hands below his chin. “Let’s have it.”

ǁ _harmr meðal stafkarlar_ ǁ 

It was late afternoon by the time he finally made it the block and a half back to the tower the penthouse crowned. When he did he was quiet, fraught with thoughts, and shaking like a spooked animal. He was quiet because he had no other to reason to be. Now that his company was his own thoughts he felt little need to say anything to himself that could not just be thought. The bombardment of input from Miss Selina Kyle was not unwelcome, but would take some time to process. Time, and silence which he was unsure he would have access to as much as he would like.

Those, however, seemed minor problems compared to the tremor that had come onto him at around two o’ clock. It had been small at first, merely the faint quivering of a muscle in his ankle. By the time he made the short walk home it had spread up into his hands, which for lack of a better thing to do with them he had shoved in the pockets of his coat.

What confounded him was the cause: for there was none that he could feel or discern for his body to react in such a way. He was well hydrated, fed to the point of it not being a problem, and healed enough for it to be unrelated to his wound. It was just _there_ , and no matter how many calming breaths or meditative regiments he cycled through, it would not subside. If anything it worsened as the hollowness in his chest seemed to deepen, painfully seeming to gnaw out depths of himself and his energy that he could not afford to lose touch with.

He noted with frustration that the desk clerk, the Cassandra/Cassie that had been mentioned before, cast him a worried glance from behind her marble station as he walked past to the elevators. He turned his head, refusing to acknowledge her or her worry as he drew out his key card. Between shaking fingers, he was barely able to keep a grip on it.

Once inside the elevator, positive that it was closed and on the privately locked course to the highest floor, he leaned heavily on the railings lining the small room. His mind, which he had been able to keep in touch throughout the whole ordeal, seemed to scatter for a panicky moment as the tremors shook his entire body. He lost track of whether or not he was breathing through the onslaught, his eyes clenched shut and his grip on the rail almost enough to crush it as he clung to reality.

The control of his body came back in a snap that whiplashed all of his sensory input back to him. He was nauseous for a moment, the lights too bright, the sounds of the elevator’s mechanisms too loud, and his own grip on the rail too painful for him to stand. He let go, clapped his hands over his ears and shut his eyes for a moment as he took in a desperate breath.

When he opened his eyes and lowered his hands, it was better. The world was back to its normal state, as was he, if only save for the exhaustion that hung like a funeral stone from his neck. He brushed a hand over his face, wiping away the cold sweat and the thin-lipped scowl that had been there as the elevator lifted him to his destination. Alfred was not there to greet him as the doors opened, but there was a drifting scent of cooking food that gave Loki a very good idea of where he was. The smell stung him for a moment before that sense too settled down, and he took a slow step out of the lift into the foyer.

Taking another deep breath and a quicker step towards the kitchen, he vowed to have a word with Lucius Fox. The ails of the flesh had been overcome, but as they all had thought, the ails of the blood were far from dealt with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please take heart all friends and readers that there is fluff and smut going on behind closed doors in this fic, and for those of you interested in reading it I will not be hiding it away forever. It will not, however, be written by me because all of my characters have hideously loquacious sex, and I'm not going to put you through all of that. So instead I've commissioned several of my impassioned writer friends who are invested in this fic to write the explicit scenes for me. (Actually it is more accurate to say that they told me they would volunteer to be writing smut for this fic and I agreed to post it to the world wide web on their behalf.) They will be likely posted as a separate collection of asides once this fic is finished, so that those who aren't interested in reading them won't have to, and so that those who are interested in reading them will have access to them in all their unadulterated glory. More on that as it comes along, but for the mean time: huzzah.
> 
> PS: the 'breaker' script is, in Old Norse, translated as "sorrow among beggars".


	5. Chapter 4

Loki had anticipated his first day at the Wayne Enterprises building to be an event of a considerable amount of drama, considering both his reputation and the manner in which he had been acquisitioned into the company. As in most things he could manage, he was not incorrect in that anticipation. There was a greeting committee of secretaries for him when he arrived with the three young interns, women who, though well dressed and undoubtedly nice, he would likely never see again except in passing. For this he held little regard or regret, considering he likely had many more important but nameless faces to be introduced to. The office had a pyramid structure, which was to say that the common multitude of employees inhabited the lower floors. The higher in the building you went, the more important the people were who worked there.

He considered it quite an honor, in such a case, to be placed on the second highest floor in the entire building. The top floor, fortunately, housed only one office, home to Mr. Lucius Fox himself. Thus, even the executive interns, and Wayne himself, did not have rights to brag about an office on the top floor and the implications of one. Mr. Fox on the other hand handled the bragging rights with grace and a thinly veiled smirk, as he handled most things.

It seemed almost a laughable matter to Loki, considering the shambling state of his past office that such a petty hierarchy would be something to brag about incessantly. Nonetheless, he preferred the simple office politic compared to the staggering social politic that had been present in Asgard. And though he may not have been what most Asgardians considered socially accepted, he was in complete control of the image he portrayed to them, and control was more than satisfactory for him. Acceptance did not always warrant understanding, and he wanted even less those who were willing to accept without understanding.

Thus, his place in this microcosm, which had yet to be established, would be nothing more than the batting of an eye for him. A blink of effort by comparison to the complicated reigns he had tethered around the rungs of Asgardian society. He would enjoy the simple game while he had the chance, in hopes of perhaps finally garnering some understanding in the hopes of it leading to acceptance.

What he was finding that he did not enjoy, however, was the abundance of annoying and somewhat nosy neighbors the upper floors contained. His goal for that day was a simple one: to transfer all of his digital strongholds onto different servers in order to keep them properly masked. Doing so, however, entailed a rather lengthy encryption and decryption process that could no sooner be enticed to speed up than it could be enticed to stop. It took him nearly two hours to start the program simply because he had absolutely no privacy in which to conduct his business. All of the upper echelon of the enterprise took as much interest in his work as any threatened peon would.

To others it might have been considered a warm welcome from the new office, but to him it really was just getting to be a nuisance.

Admittedly it was a nuisance not made more tolerable by the fact that the man in the office next to his seemed insistent upon listening to the same song ceaselessly for hours on end. Loki doubted that he would ever be able to even hear ‘Duke of Earl’ again without flinching at the thought. It had done some kind of subliminal damage associated with annoyance and avoidance of work that would likely take centuries to bleach from his memory. At one point he eagerly looked forward to those centuries, simply because it made the present predicament only mildly more tolerable.

His usual deference towards the boorish behavior of his neighbors was hard to maintain after he had finally got his systems up and running. With his computer successfully personalized to his needs and protected to his standards, it was simple to get the encryption programs streaming. That left him, however, with one even more troublesome visitors and absolutely nothing to do to distract himself from his growing irritation.

Usually he would have been above such mild shows of annoyance as thrumming his fingers on his desk, but at that point in his day, it was not worth resisting the temptation or the catharsis that it gave him. If he had tried to resist, he would likely have ended up wounding someone, and that was simply not the impression he wanted to give at that particular time.

When yet another knock sounded at his door, however, he was quite tempted to throw his Swingline stapler at whoever was daring to enter. With a bit more self-restraint, he kept his hands away from the weighty implement and instead dully bid whoever was outside to enter. He did keep in mind however that, should the company get a bit too cumbersome, he did have rather potent aim with other implements, staplers notwithstanding. The chance to establish territory was still open, should the circumstances go south.

Much to his relief, it turned out only to be the interns at his door, who all ushered in quickly before shutting the door firmly behind them. Apparently they had taken note of his slowly simmering temper. Dick even stayed leaning against the door to keep any other particularly interested parties from entering into their little congress. To his chagrin, Loki believed that it was actually a needed precaution.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, ceasing in his thrumming for a moment, lest he wear a hole in his fine new desk. “What can I do for you?”

Jason strode forward, producing from the crook of his arm a paper cup, steam slowly curling from the hole in the lid. Loki could smell even from his desk that it was a quality brew, and one procured from outside the office. Why they would have bothered with such an effort was beyond him, given that the office already upheld one of the best brands of coffee procurable by legal means. The lavish gift was neither necessary nor requested. Then again, he had never been one above bribery, and so took the peace offering gratefully.

He took a testing sip, and, finding it pleasantly to his liking, and let out a sigh as the tension in his shoulders unwound. Looking to the boys with a grin, he settled back into his chair to show his comfort. “Alright, I’m listening.”

Tim settled down in one of the chairs perched before his desk, snatching what must have been his own drink from the cardboard carton in Jason’s arms. “We just wanted to see how things were going,” he said simply, in the manner of artificially friendly tone that all professionals used when they weren’t truly saying what they meant. “Is the office to your liking?”

Loki nodded obligingly, but mustered up a wicked smile. “Quite so,” he assured. “But I get the feeling that what I have done to it since arriving this morning is not to your liking. I’m sure that by now your computer technicians are sweating themselves into a fervor trying to figure out where my corporate files have gone. Call them and tell them to stop looking, and take the same measures for yourselves. You won’t find them, and you won’t need to. Everything I have access to will be at my liberty to divulge and your liberty to do with what you will once I have given it to you.” Dick grimaced, but Tim and Jason seemed much less flummoxed about the idea. “Don’t get your knickers in a knot, Dick. I can be a reasonable and generous person when I choose.”

The eldest intern scowled at him, and made a grappling motion at Jason to get his own coffee handed to him. “Pardon me if I’m not assured,” he grumbled around his drink. “How did you manage all that in just a few hours anyway? You would have to have an entire external network of computers set up, and there was nothing of the sort in your apartment or your office when we cleaned them out.”

Loki raised his brows. “So you’ve been snooping in my sock-drawer, have you? How naughty.”

Dick nearly hid himself behind his tie. He may have succeeded if his head had not been quite so large. With a sigh, he managed to look the elder man in the eye. “Look, we know that you needed the things from your office and that leaving any personal belongings in your apartment wouldn’t be wise. Can you blame us for snooping a bit while we were there?”

“Yes,” Loki answered simply. “You are completely responsible, and therefore able to be blamed, for your actions. Whether or not I believe they were a logical course of action is not what you asked.” He took another sip of his drink, and the interns snickered at the other’s plight. “Seeing as your understanding of privacy is somewhat primitive I may as well ask, did you perchance find anything of interest while you were there?”

The three young men stood quiet for a moment, as if unsure what kind of cruel hammer would fall on the head of the one who spoke first. Finally Tim piped up, seeming to take a small amount of faith in both his courage and his honesty. Loki could not decide whether or not he could in good conscience commend that courage. 

“Clothes, mostly. Identification, simple bank statements. Not nearly enough to account for your income or your business expenses,” he summarized quickly. “But we didn’t find any traces of external bank accounts or resources. You’re still several step s ahead of us, Mr. Danvers, in spite of your best efforts.”

He offered them a glib smile. “And that, of course, is such a surprise.”

Jason huffed out a grudging laugh from behind his tea. The little tab indicated that it was green tea of some kind, which would have seemed out of character if Loki were not sure that at points all of them had to be health conscious. “I’m starting to believe that it really shouldn’t be a surprise,” he conceded to the audience of his peers. “I think we’re really going to have to school ourselves to stop underestimating you, Norman. It is never going to get us anywhere but on your bad side.”

“Not a chance.” The three boys looked at him with suspicion. “You’re all so darling I’m quite sure I couldn’t be bothered to hold a grudge.” Tim and Dick rolled their eyes, and Jason just shook his head. “Truly, though. I’ve divulged the nature of my workings as far as you will get them at this point in time. Your investigations and inquiries have offered you nothing but what I am willing to show you. Thus, you can’t afford to be wasting this much time, knowing your job descriptions, unless you feel you're not wasting it at all. What do you want?”

Dick grinned viciously. “We want your body.”

It was a pity Midgardian’s, in some not-so-shining moments, had senses of humor almost as crude as the Asgardians. “I’m afraid you’re a little late on the uptake, gentlemen. If I’m not mistaken, and I do my utmost not to be, I should be very shortly unavailable. Perhaps next Valentine’s day I'll give you a chance. Until then I might recommend some hired help or a good online dating resource.”

Dick groaned, and Loki decided that it would be his inherent goal so long as he was staying in Gotham do thwart any effort Dick made to be perverse or intolerable. He had to convince the more vindictive part of his mind that it was, in fact, for charity to Bruce Wayne and not out of a will to be froward because the young man amused him. He tended to peerlessly harass those whom he actually liked.

Tim and Jason seemed quite proud of his efforts thus far, and turned to give their fellow intern the full force of their laughter at his expense. Loki could barely imagine what interviewing all of them must have been like, and it made him shudder to think of the possibility of all three of them eventually having to sit in the same room together for the first time. It must have been what gave Lucius Fox the majority of his gray hair.

He was quite sure that by the end of his stay, he would have a few Robin-originated gray hairs himself. He could only hope that he would wear them well.

“We’re actually stalling until Lucius comes around,” Tim admitted finally, after they’d had their fun with giving Dick his just dues. “He wanted to talk to you about some of your health issues, and Bruce told us to listen in and keep an eye on you for his sake.”

Loki hummed, and thumbed at the plastic lid of his drink. “I’m sure because he is actually attempting to catch up on his sleep now that I’m not monopolizing his bed,” he intoned sarcastically.

Brutally shoved away from his post leaning against the door, Dick scrambled to keep hold of his coffee as Lucius peered in innocently from behind him. Loki smirked, pleased that the man was at least strong enough to dislodge unwanted interference he viewed to be in his way. “Actually, Mr. Danvers, you not being in his bed only gives him more reason to stay away from it, if you would believe it,” he said, making the three interns groan in unison. The man bore no shame for his interruption or his eavesdropping. Loki was quite proud.

“I would believe it actually,” Loki said demurely, preening for the sake of further embarrassing the young gents assembled. “I take particular care to guarantee it.”

Lucius laughed, and Loki stood, flicking a hand over the keyboard to his computer and executing a few last safety precautions to insure his business could be conducted safely without him. He assumed that whatever business Lucius wanted to speak of, he wanted to do in private and away from any distractions. Loki could grant him that, but not without serving his own ends first, and the sad state of the facts was that he was several days behind his standard flow of information and needed sorely to begin catching up his systems. Thankfully he could reap the benefits of his nets later, once they had caught their fill for him.

“Very good, Mr. Danvers, very good. I assume the boys have warned you that I was coming, and though I would like to, I can’t promise that this won’t take a while. It is, if it’s any consolation, quite necessary if we intend on keeping you alive for a foreseeable amount of time.” Lucius made a shooing motion with his hand at the interns assembled in the office. “The rest of you can actually go work while we’re talking, if it’s not beyond you.”

“Sorry Lucius,” Dick said, having recovered his graces. “Bruce told us that we needed to sit in on this little update and report back to him on the results. He doesn't want you to think he's being inattentive.”

Fox looked at him, completely nonplussed. “If Mr. Wayne thinks that I’m not reliable enough to give him the information he’s commissioned me for, then we have more things to talk about than the health details of his new employee. If he wants a witness and an opinion, that’s a different matter, but I can assure you that not all of you need to be present, and I’d prefer not to have my lab more crowded than is necessary.”

“Like you don’t have enough room,” Tim grumbled, but the rest of the room ignored him diligently.

Loki thought for a moment, thrumming his fingers on the desk again absently. “If you really think that Bruce is looking for an outside opinion, I suppose that it can’t be avoided,” he said, though he didn’t much like the idea of showing his soft underbelly to more people than was strictly speaking necessary. “Though, as the old adage states, you tell your doctor things you would never tell anyone else. Your bartender you tell even more.”

“More to my point,” Fox said, still seeming against the idea of an extended audience. “Besides, I’ve already called in a consultant whose opinion I trust more than any of you. She’s far more objective, and far more knowledgeable. And Wayne had better approve of her: he employed her before he employed any of you.”

At that, the whole collection of interns seemed to brighten intensely and come to a collective conclusion about what Fox meant. Loki did not particularly enjoy the feeling of being left in the dark, but he had a faint idea that he hoped to turn out correct.

“Would his perhaps be the Cassandra character that you’ve all been mumbling about?” he asked, and the three interns turned to him with stunned expressions. Lucius only smiled, and Loki felt gratified that he lived up to Fox’s lofty standards of deduction. He usually didn’t care to gratify anyone’s opinion of him, but for Fox he was willing to make an exception.

Fox nodded to answer his question, snapping his fingers to get the attention of the shell-shocked interns. “Mr. Danvers is right, and I assume you all came to the same conclusion. So if you’re quite comfortable with my reliability and my resources, you can get back to your actual jobs. I'm sure that Mr. Wayne will forgive you for keeping his company and his wealth afloat.”

Fox even had the decency to hold the door open for them as they left, which they did amidst a sea of grumbling acquiescence. Their nihilism towards their desk jobs was almost understandable; the level of interest by comparison was almost laughable. He was still grateful when they left, and breathed out slowly over the steam still curling from his latte. 

Following Lucius out, he locked the door behind them, not for lack of monitoring provided by the interns, but rather out of respect for his own paranoia. Fox had been implying that whatever information he wanted could take a while to gather or extrapolate, and though his programs could run on their own, they could not be left unsupervised or uncared for. Especially not in the company of others he did not strictly trust, such as the music-obsessed chap next door. If the shenanigans continued throughout the week, he and Loki would be sharing some very bloody words.

After he was sure that the office was secure, he followed after the company head to the elevator. They took it up one floor before disembarking and heading to the man’s personal office. Loki would not have been surprised if the man’s personal lab did not have its own elevator leading down to it. Their ride up may have been a bit moot directionally, but for the sake of privacy it was likely required. Why Wayne allowed such extravagant secrets was beyond him, but he supposed it was in the man's style to have them.

As surely as he had anticipated, once they entered, Fox fiddled with some implements on his desk, only to reveal a hidden door behind his bookshelf. Loki looked to him appraisingly, but Fox only looked back blandly. “No,” he replied. “You can’t have one.”

Loki snorted out a laugh and shook his head, striding after the man to stand at his shoulder in the small elevator. The ride down was lengthy, and Loki would not have been surprised to find they had long delved underground in spite of the height of the building. His guess was proved correct when the doors of the elevator opened to reveal an incredibly long room with a low slung ceiling. Bright white lights flickered on as they exited, illuminating the vicinity closest to the elevator in almost blinding clarity.

He looked around, squinting into the remaining dark. Hulking figures of invention loomed in the shadows, but he knew that until further notice none of them were for his sake to investigate. Lucius walked along a long metal table strewn with blueprints and project ideas, and Loki’s eyes skimmed them as he followed. Some of them looked quite promising, but he refrained from commenting out of respect for the other man’s unfinished projects. He knew how feverishly he hated when others walked in on his progressing works.

Finally the lights illuminated what Fox seemed to be walking towards, which turned out to be a large pad of exercise tiling surrounded by cameras. He grimaced at it, suddenly a lot less comfortable with this physical exploration than he had originally anticipated. “If you were into this kind of business, Mr. Fox,” he said, “I would assume that you would at least have had the decency not to include me in it. Not that I don’t feel I’m winsome enough, mind.”

Fox looked back at him with a sidelong glance. “Of that I have no doubt, Mr. Danvers, but of that you need have no concern. What I want to do is document your strength and reaction time. I want to see what activities seem to aggravate the ailment you have so that you can avoid them if possible. Also, seeing you shirtless will undoubtedly do wonderful things for Mr. Wayne’s day.”

Loki almost thought about having the decency to blush, but then he decided that he couldn’t possibly be bothered to do so considering his rather fond feelings towards Mr. Wayne’s predispositions towards him.

A faint ding came from the elevator behind them, and Loki turned to see who had come to join their little circus. When the doors opened, they revealed a small woman standing in the elevator. She strode forward with perfectly executed grace, and not a single sound came from her feet as she came forward. Loki smiled to himself, recognizing her at once as the young girl Cassandra they had all been speaking of, and who he had passed in the lobby of Wayne's penthouse building.

She stopped a reasonable distance away from them, and Fox nodded to her. She gave a short not of her own head, before her sharp eyes turned to Loki. Loki, sensing her eyes as they observed every aspect of him, bowed in response. When he rose again she seemed surprised at the show of respect, her fair brows only just raised for him. That surprise, however, did not keep her from bowing back. He remained smiling at her, and she attempted to mimic the look on his face. It was a rather cute attempt, which she succeeded at quite splendidly.

With that he turned back to Lucius, finding his opponent, or at least co-demonstrator much more agreeable a prospect. “I assume you’re not going to just sick her on poor little me,” he said, trying to sound as meek as what might merit pity.

Fox openly laughed at him, and Loki pouted as openly as he dared. “Mr. Danvers, those baby eyes may work on many other men, but they will not work on me, and they will not work on Cassie. I suggest you put on your big-boy trousers and suit up. We wouldn’t want you to get sweat all over your nice new suit. I’m sure Mr. Wayne would not appreciate you smelling up his place or his clothes.”

Loki shrugged, and moved forward towards the gear that Lucius was setting up. “I hope that you can provide me with something, dear Fox, because I did not bring clothes with me for this particular contingency. That, and I certainly hope you intend on getting a few of the essentials first before we begin.”

Lucius tossed a pile of fair light fabric at him, and Loki caught it deftly, feeling the material in his fingers. It was quite supple, but had the stretch of a pragmatic utility item. He liked it immediately and subtly planned to covet it for his own if the circumstances would allow. Even if only for lounging in, it would be nice to have something of his own to speak of, and not something purchased and provided by the charity of others.

“Go get dressed, Mr. Danvers. We have a lot of work to do,” the elder man assured. "Your body chemistry comes first. Flexing later."

ǁ _harmr meðal stafkarlar_ ǁ

Miss Cassandra Cain was a taxingly thorough examiner, and if Loki had not been on the receiving end of her scrutiny, he would have loved to spectate her methods. She was calm and purposeful, quick and concise when she needed to be, slow and just as deliberate when she deemed it conducive. All the while Fox’s instructions to make Loki mimic her movements, and at one time actually openly spar, resulted in as much information for them as it did for him. He had restrained himself from hurting her, but at one point he had also had to restrain from hurting himself. He could feel muscle spasms coming on, and had been forced to compensate to keep them from escalating into the kind of episode he had experienced before.

That point in their spar had not gone unnoticed by Cassandra, who had suddenly backed off in order to accommodate him without needing to even be told. Her erudite observations made him wonder who had trained her to be so. They could either be commended as brilliant or manic, to instill such scientific precision in a young girl.

By the end of it, Loki was even angrier with himself than before. He had lost none of his skill, but going through the physical motions, albeit milder than he was accustomed to, proved without a doubt just how drained he was. Lucius and Cassandra seemed much more pleased by their results; even though Fox would need hours upon hours to catch up on what Cassandra likely already knew. Loki, however, knew that even though their results would likely outshine most human results, they were dull and eroded compared to what he typically expected of himself. It was pitiful, how weak he was. More than pitiful, it was dangerous how little he felt he could defend himself without the use of external implements.

Whilst he was mulling over the results in his own head, he drew his dress shirt up over his shoulders, sighing at the table he was leaning against. Cassandra walked up to him, and stood in front of him until he finally deemed to take note of her. He had gotten into the habit of losing himself to thought those days. She attempted her smile again, putting a gentle hand on his forearm, which had been the area where his spasms had initiated. Her eyes searched his, and for a moment a flash of memory overtook him. A long time ago his young girl had held him much the same. His daughter had said the same thing then that Cassandra meant now.

‘I’ll look out for you, even when you’re not looking out for yourself.’

He laid his hand on top of hers and smiled back. He let out a short breath, hoping that eventually allies would be enough to quell the rising fear in him. The fear that glinted a sword’s edge in the shadows of his dreams, and whispered of something much more imminent and permanent than mad cackling men.

That fate, he feared, he could not escape no matter how many true and devoted allies he procured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So please forgive the probably numerous blatant errors in this. I completely scrapped the draft for this chapter and started over. I will likely edit it later, so please be patient with me. In the mean time, enjoy, and please forgive my extreme absence.
> 
> PS: the 'breaker' script is, in Old Norse, translated as "sorrow among beggars".


End file.
